Today’s announcement of Impress Labs’ merger with Duo PR under a new entity, KiteRocket LLC, marks an exciting new chapter in the life of the company Dave Richardson and I started 11 years ago (see the press release below for details). Since then, public relations has changed dramatically and widened its scope. The mobile revolution, social media, and the consumer landscape require a completely different approach.

At Impress Labs, we focus heavily on business-to-business (B2B) clients in the science and technology space, while Duo has traditionally been focused on business-to-consumer (B2C) clients in lifestyle and consumer technology. But we feel the B2B and B2C terminology no longer accurately represents what we do. Modern communications involves humans marketing to humans, regardless of whether your business sells to other businesses or directly to “the consumer.”

Our lives are no longer segregated between work and leisure time. We consume information and make connections with other humans in a much more fluid and continuous way, thanks to apps and social media. Indeed, our smartphones now serve as our remote control for life and provide continuous connections with both our professional and our private lives throughout the day.

As humans, we are constantly bombarded with information. We have become highly skilled at filtering out the noise and zeroing in on what matters to us. We can spot spam a mile away and we rapidly make information choices in fractions of seconds. We know how to block or unsubscribe from blatant, self-promoting marketing fluff.

As we see it, modern PR and marketing is based on relating to core human values to build relationships and, ultimately, create meaningful brand relationships. That’s not B2B or B2C, its B2Me.

Our new partners, Amanda Foley and Rebecca Mosley, share that vision.

By combining our agencies, we are setting a new course for a PR agency of the future, bringing new opportunities for our clients to connect with humans in exciting new ways. We look forward to serving you.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Impress Labs and Duo PR Announce Agency Merger

U.S. West Coast agencies combine to build PR firm of the future

PHOENIX, SAN FRANCISCO and SEATTLE, July 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Impress Labs and Duo Public Relations Inc., both flourishing U.S. West Coast public relations and marketing firms, today announced the two agencies have merged. For the immediate future, the two brands will continue to operate under their existing agency names, though now they are part of the newly formed parent company KiteRocket LLC. The move enables the two companies to combine resources and offer full-service business-to-business and consumer public relations, creative services and digital marketing under one umbrella and across expanded geographical locations.

Combined, the two agencies total more than $5M in annual billings, employ more than 40 full-time employees and have offices in San Francisco, Seattle and Phoenix, with satellite offices in Providence, Rhode Island, London and Taiwan. The founders—industry veterans Martijn Pierik, Dave Richardson, Rebecca Mosley and Amanda Foley—will serve as managing partners of the newly formed company.

“Though Impress Labs has a business-to-business heritage, and Duo PR focuses on business-to-consumer, the management team has a shared vision of what modern PR is, and how we’ll build an offering in today’s marketplace that emphasizes human-to-human marketing around the clock, across numerous channels,” commented Pierik, co-founder of Impress Labs. “Our teams and cultures very much align, and with more than a decade of success behind both agencies, we have an exceptionally strong platform to build upon.”

The two agencies met through PR Boutiques International (PRBI), an unaffiliated global network of independently owned firms. After beginning discussions in 2015, and collaborating on clients throughout the last several months, the deal was formally inked in early April 2016. The firms have already streamlined back-of-house and managerial operations, and are jointly working with agency clients as part of a cross-company service offering.

“The idea to join forces came together very organically,” commented Duo PR Co-Founder Rebecca Mosley. “We all attended PRBI’s annual conference in London last June, which is always an incredibly energizing event, and started talking about what’s next for our respective agencies. It was apparent we had complementary offerings and pieces of the growth puzzle, in terms of geography and service offerings, the other could benefit from. The chemistry and collaboration easily fell into place.”

Impress Labs, founded by Pierik and Richardson in 2005, brings significant experience in international public relations and marketing to the merger, particularly within solar, semiconductor and life science verticals. The company maintains PR operations in the U.S. (San Francisco, Phoenix and Providence, Rhode Island), Europe and Asia, while also offering a full-service creative and digital marketing division. This fuels creative strategies, resulting in an integrated PR approach using SEO, content marketing, social media, graphic design, web/app development, production and more.

Duo PR, founded by Mosley and Foley in 2004, comes to the table with deep consumer PR knowledge, with a specialty focus on national and regional clients in the food and beverage, travel, and health and wellness industries. The company manages a prestigious client roster from its Seattle office, where it focuses on traditional media relations, influencer marketing, events and social media.

No employee jobs were affected as a result of the merger; in fact, the company is actively recruiting talent and welcomes interested parties to contact us at info@impresslabs.com.

About Impress Labs

Impress Labs is a global brand, creative and communications agency focused on helping solar, cleantech, life science and semiconductor companies reach their communications and business objectives. Our Creating Agents™ process specifically targets people who influence buying decisions and provides companies with a path to increased sales through brand development, creative expression and public awareness through well-executed PR and dynamic digital and social media strategies. www.impresslabs.com

About Duo PR

Duo Public Relations is an innovative Seattle public relations agency specializing in consumer and lifestyle PR. Founded in 2004, the agency’s specialty practice areas include food and beverage, travel and hospitality PR, as well as health and wellness PR. Working with a wide range of companies, from household names to independent entrepreneurs, Duo PR focuses its campaigns on merging traditional and contemporary communication avenues to engage consumers and deliver measureable results.www.duopr.com