Salovaara Watson

Salovaara & Kukkonen Group is an American global marketing, branding and corporate communications company, headquartered in New York City.

History
Salovaara & Kukkonen Group was founded in 1975 by Finnish-American graphic designers Henri Salovaara (born 1954) and Jari Kukkonen (1957-2002).

In 1978, after their work on branding of Junvic Pictures, they were convinced to open an office in El Kadsre City, where they worked on the branding of El TV Kadsre Television Network, which became iconic, and the core branding (black and blue text in Impact-like font) was used until 2017.

In 1990, the company merged with Clark, Smith, Green, Davis + Miller to form Salovaara, Clark, Smith, Kukkonen, Green, Davis + Miller. The CSGD+M offices became S&K offices in 2002, thus phasing out the name and going back to the former.

Jari Kukkonen announced to leave the company in 1991, due to him being diagnosed with cancer. Henri Salovaara supported his battle with cancer until his death in 2002, and is heavily involved in philantrophy with cancer research.

Restructuring (2019)
In September 2019, S&K/Banne sold 126 offices around the world to Dure Design Group. In October 2019, S&K sold 50 offices to Dure Design Group. The same month, S&K/Alpha shut down operations in Medellin, Bogota, Montevideo, Casablanca and Lima, as those employees went on to work for Dure Design Group as well. Also that month, S&K/Banne merged operations in Latin America and most of S&K/Banne Asia into the parent company S&K. The only Asian office S&K/Banne still has, as of November 2019, is in Istanbul, Turkey.

On November 3, 2019, the New Delhi and Hyderabad offices merged to form S&K Pune, located in Pune, India. The offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur merged to form S&K Southeast Asia in Bangkok, which gained the Singapore office as its satellite office, as well as the Macau office (itself result of merger between the New Taipei City, Hong Kong, and Shanghai offices). S&K/Alpha's standalone office in Port-of-Spain merged with S&K's operations in San Jose (Costa Rica), Mexico City, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Panama City to form S&K Latino, located in Mexico City, which will cover all of Latin America, except for Brazil.

On November 10, 2019, S&K acquired Laserium Sega Experiences's studios in Paris and Johannesburg, and their VR development studio in Sao Paulo.

S&K/Banne
Founded as George Banne Company (trading as Banne) in 1987 by George Banne, S&K/Banne started out as a branding studio. In 2014, GBC Holdings bought out 33% of the company. Qualis, the successor, acquired the rest of the stakes in 2018. All the offices that were near or in the same cities as S&K's offices were merged, while the rest were spun off into S&K/Banne.

In 1993, George Banne and Henri Salovaara formed a close partnership.

They have offices in 24 cities around the world.

S&K/Alpha
Founded as Alphamel in 2014, S&K/Alpha specializes in interactive marketing, namely: websites, digital campaigns, digital communication, microsites, online video, web banners and more. S&K/Alpha has areas of specialty that they call "centers of excellence" in the following areas: planning, gaming, mobile, iTV, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, management consulting, eCommerce, SONAR, and Health & Wellness.

Their headquarters are in Melbourne, Australia. They also operate in S&K offices marked with the note "(also a S&K/Alpha office)".

S&K/Humane
Established in 2018, S&K/Humane is a subsidiary headquartered in Miami, Florida, which is focused on multiculturalism and pride. They also operate alongside with S&K/Banne Chicago, and also in S&K offices marked with the note "(also a S&K/Humane office)".

North America
Salovaara & Kukkonen Group has 8 offices in North America.
 * Los Angeles
 * San Francisco
 * Toronto (also a S&K/Alpha office)
 * Vancouver
 * Miami
 * Montreal
 * New York City (headquarters)
 * El Kadsre City

Europe
Salovaara & Kukkonen Group has 7 offices in Europe.
 * Barcelona
 * Bucharest
 * Milan
 * Madrid
 * London (also a S&K/Humane office)
 * Paris
 * Warsaw

S&K South (Africa, Asia and Oceania + South America)
S&K South covers the South America, Africa and Asia-Oceania.

Latin America

 * Mexico City - trading as S&K Latino (also a S&K/Alpha office)
 * Rio de Janiero (also a S&K/Humane office)
 * Sao Paulo (also a S&K/Alpha office)

Southeast Asia

 * Bangkok (also a S&K/Humane office and a S&K/Alpha office) - trading as S&K Southeast Asia
 * Satellite offices, both also operating as part of S&K/Alpha, are based in Singapore and Macau

East Asia

 * Beijing
 * Seoul

India

 * Pune - trading as S&K Pune
 * Mumbai

Australia & New Zealand

 * Melbourne
 * Auckland
 * Brisbane
 * Sydney (also a S&K/Alpha office)

Middle East & Africa

 * Cairo
 * Tel Aviv
 * Abu Dhabi
 * Dubai
 * Johannesburg (also a S&K/Humane office)