There’s a big rumble in the Brooklyn tech scene, with Vice Media announcing today that it has acquired digital agency Carrot Creative.
Vice made its name first as a brash online magazine that now publishes content across a wide variety of channels, including video, television, advertising and events. Carrot Creative specializes in building apps, websites, social media campaigns and games for brands.
“When I met Mike and the Carrot team, I was first struck by how alike to Vice they were; not only handsome, but also driven to make an impact on the world while making their own rules – when I learned that they were nerds and much smarter than us, I started salivating about working together,” says Andrew Creighton, president of Vice. “We’ve long been reinventing what’s possible in the world of digital content, and together with Carrot, we will disrupt the absurdity of the current content hegemony, create and take our place in the new world order of media.”
Carrot CEO (and Hub blogger) Mike Germano will join Vice as its new chief digital officer, and the agency will be used to help push Vice content onto different digital channels, as well as develop digital initiatives for brands working with the media company.
According to this report from the New York Times, Vice is set to launch new content verticals into sports, fashion, and news and Carrot will be instrumental in developing the content delivery channels for them, leveraging their status as a preferred developer for several platforms.
With Carrot coming on to become Vice’s digital arm, Germano says it’ll give the media company a huge advantage in the content publishing world. “We’re in the middle of a digital arms race for publishers,” he says, referring to heavy tech investments from content publishers such as Yahoo and the New York Times. “We can help Vice build out the new ways their content interacts with other platforms and reaches their young readership.”
Vice’s own in-house agency, Virtue, which helped brands create content will work in tandem with Carrot. In addition to extending its services to those clients, Carrot will keep all its own clients, and remain in its DUMBO, Brooklyn office location.
Germano says he had no desire to sell the agency to a holding company, but when Vice approached the company in June, it didn’t take him too long to agree. “There wasn’t a lot of negotiation, we knew very early that this could be a really great partnership,” says Germano. “The only people taking time were the lawyers, we did most of our discussions over a few drinks.”
Keeping Carrot’s company culture was of prime importance to Germano, and a deciding factor in his decision to join Vice. “Our two cultures are very similar, there’s just the right amount of brashness on both sides,” says Germano. “There’s a bit of a streetfighter in both our companies, and we think Vice is going to change the world.”
