Finland’s leading marketing and communications agency serving the international B2B market will emerge with Valve Branding Oy’s acquisition of Recommended Group Oy. The company will continue under the Valve name.
Valve designs and implements marketing and communications that help companies build awareness, increase demand and drive growth. Customer understanding is the key, and its significance in the digitalizing, rapidly changing operating environment is increasingly important. To succeed, companies must listen to customers more, understand their motives and changes in the marketplace, and react to them quickly.
“Companies that invest in the customer and service experience have better success than average in their sector. The value perceived by the customer is at the core of customer understanding. In this respect, however, many still have room for improvement; a company’s own idea about their customers’ value perception can be incredibly far from the truth. We want to help B2B companies and public sector players to build an increasingly better customer experience and to succeed,” says CEO Sara Nikander.
Valve’s vision is to be the most preferred and valued marketing and communications partner for innovative, growth-oriented, responsible companies. According to a recent survey1) of B2B managers, B2B customers expect their marketing partner to have a good business understanding and genuine interest in the customer’s business and its challenges, as well as the ability to offer concrete solutions. This requires the ability to put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
“We have a shared, strong desire to help growth-oriented companies to succeed and internationalize, and our talents are incredibly complementary. We are really happy in uniting our strengths with Valve’s communication and marketing professionals,” note Tero Heittola and Salla Halme, the main owners of Recommended Group.
Both companies have decades of experience in building business, product and service brands in the B2B market. During the last couple of years the companies have also seen a significant increase in demand for services combining strategic level communications and communications and modern digital marketing. Additionally, the companies produce comprehensive marketing, customer experience and communications services for public sector organizations.
After realization of the transaction, the combined company will have a total of more than 70 marketing and communications experts, and a turnover of over 10 million euros. After the merger, Valve will have offices in Helsinki and Rovaniemi, and it intends to become the leading B2B marketing and communications agency in the Nordics.
Valve is part of Valve Group, striving to offer the best communications, marketing and technology experts to support the compelling storytelling of companies’ businesses and brands. In addition to the Valve marketing and communication agency, the Valve Group family also consists of Valve Motion, specializing in moving images design and production; Wakeone, producing virtual and immersive Internet application and content services; as well as the Group’s associated companies, the Folk Finland Oy advertising agency, Mediafactory Dakar Oy, and Oppobot Oy, digitalizing the testing of product and service concepts.
Recommended Group Oy is formed by Recommended Finland Oy and Focus Flow Oy.
More information:
Sara Nikander, CEO, Valve, tel. 045 673 5577
Tero Heittola, CEO, Recommended Group, tel. 040 726 1977
1) Nikander, S (2019). The Marketing Agency of the Future: Client Expectations and the Optimal Operating Model. Management Research Challenge, Henley Business School, University of Reading
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