Salovaara Watson is an American global marketing, branding and corporate communications conglomerate, headquartered in New York City. They're one of four world-leading advertising companies, next to WPP, Havas and Publicis.
History
Salovaara & Kukkonen Group
Salovaara & Kosch Group was founded in 1975 as Salovaara & Kukkonen Group by Finnish-American graphic designers Henri Salovaara (born 1954) and Jari Kukkonen (1957-2002).
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 Jari's battle with cancer until the latter's death in 2002, and is heavily involved in philantrophy with cancer research.
Salovaara & Kosch Group
In September 2019, S&K/Banne sold 89 offices around the world to Dure Design Group. The same month, S&K/Alpha shut down operations in Medellin, as those employees went on to work for Dure Design Group as well.
On November 3, 2019, the Hyderabad offices merged to form S&K Pune, located in Pune, India. S&K also formed S&K 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 Mexico City to form S&K Latino, located in Mexico City, which will cover all of Latin America, except for Brazil.
On November 14, 2019, Salovaara & Kukkonen Group merged with Kosch & Associates to form "Salovaara & Kosch Group".
Salovaara Watson
On August 5, 2020, as Robert Kosch stepped down as co-CEO, Henri Salovaara decided to sell the company to Vuori and OWL Ventures. (Henri Salovaara does not have any relation to Kasperi Salovaara, Vuori's owner.) It was shortly afterwards renamed to Salovaara Watson, partially tongue-in-cheek due to the similar surnames the co-founder and the current co-owner shared. Kasperi announced that in the future, Styhon Battersea's Viridian Group would be integrated into the division one way or the other, with Hello Media's merger into the company being the most plausible.
In September 2020, Hello Media's non-UK/US operations, most of S&K/Banne's operations, Merkle/Sokrati, Maslansky + Partners, Mullenlowe Salt/Comms, Mullenlowe Mediahub, Mullenlowe Profero, IW Group, GMMB, Inc., Leitmotif & Magic Sports Media, S&K/Alpha (S&K's interactive marketing division), S&K/Health and Hello Health (S&K and Hello Media's health advertising divisions respectively) and HM Games (Hello Media's advergaming division) were merged into Salovaara Watson. They also expanded to government public affairs, through the acquisition of the Hello Public Affairs division, which operated in all of Hello Media's offices.
Jack Morton Princeton was turned into SW's secondary headquarters, now dubbed Salovaara Watson Princeton.
In November 2020, OWL Ventures's stake was transferred to another company founded and owned by Watson, Illustrious.
On March 5, 2021, Salovaara Watson absorbed Healthcare Consultancy Group, Snow Companies, Plaza Media Group, CDM (with CDM/BBDO joint venture Healthwork), Hill Holliday Health, FCB Health Network, Annalect, Revivehealth, FCB&FiRe, One & All, Omnicom Health Group Asia Pacific, Beanstalk, Smart Digital, Patients & Purpose, TLGG Consulting, Double M, Signature Graphics, Virtual Minds AG, smartstream.tv, SevenOne AdFactory, Trilia Media, Posterscope, Advantage, Porter Novelli, Hearts & Science, Harrison & Shriftman, Tierney, Doremus & Co, The Marketing Arm, BPN, TPN, Marina Maher Communications, Fluent 360, Third Ear, Dieste, The Brooklyn Brothers, MMG Communications, 7Screen, and their sub-agencies. Fates of their inherited offices in Freiburg im Breisgau, Stamford (CT), Shanghai, Santa Barbara, South Amboy and Parsippany (NJ), Porter (Indiana), Dallas, Burbank, Helsinki, San Jose (CA), Minneapolis, Safat, Austin, Nashville, Cincinatti, Gerlingen, Greenville (SC), Bentonville (AR), Hershey (PA), Valencia and Amstelveen are currently pending.
Subsidiaries
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 1993, George Banne and Henri Salovaara formed a close partnership. In 2014, GBC Holdings (later becoming Vuori) bought out 33% of the company, and later 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.
They have remaining offices in Helsinki.
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)".
S&K/Kosch
Founded in 1982 by Robert Kosch (born 1959), business partner Edward Wilson (born 1958), John Smith (1960-2015), Elena Anderson (1957-2018) and William Evans (born 1955) as Kosch & Associates, Inc. and headquartered in Boston, MA. They were known for designing idents for multiple brands, both on-screen and print design. On November 11, 2019, they agreed on a merger with Salovaara & Kukkonen Group to form "Salovaara & Kosch Group". After the merger finished on November 15, 2019, the remains of K&A were renamed to "S&K/Kosch".
S&K/Health
Founded in 2021, Salovaara Watson's health and medical communications division S&K/Health operates within all offices. Their additional offices are located in Beachwood, Ohio; Iselin and Princeton, New Jersey; Basingstoke, UK; Williamsburg, Virginia; Yonkers, New York; and Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Other subsidiaries
- Mercury Public Affairs
- Powell Tate
- Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
- GSD&M
- Zimmerman Williams Martin - formed out of a merger between The Martin Agency, Agency 720 and The Zimmerman Agency
- Zimmerman Advertising
- Merkley + Partners
- Martin Williams
- Bright Red
- Sawa - adtech, analytics and search technology division
- Targetbase
- Omni - marketing operating system
- Zazzle Media
- Octagon
- Jonesworks - formerly part of Wheelhouse Entertainment
- Trailer Park
- Art Machine - poster design
- Ansible
- OMD - Europe, Middle East & Africa
- OMD Entertainment - Burbank
- Futures Sport + Entertainment
- HUGE
- RAPP
- Code Worldwide
- Sparks & Honey
- Javelin
- KERN
- Organic
- Proximity Worldwide
- FleishmanHillard
- Ketchum
- Daggerwing Group
- Integrated Merchandising Solutions
- Washington Speakers Bureau
- CPM
- Changing Our World, Inc.
- ONE HUNDRED
- Virgo Health
- DDB Health
- TBWA Worldhealth
- Wildtype
- Adelphi Group
- Biolumina
- BioPharm Communications
- Entree Health
Locations
North America
Salovaara Watson has 15 offices in North America.
- Los Angeles
- San Francisco
- Toronto
- Vancouver
- Miami
- Montreal
- New York City (headquarters)
- Boston
- Chicago
- Washington DC
- Seattle
- Denver
- Baltimore
- Atlanta
- Ft. Lauderdale
Europe
Salovaara Watson has 74 offices in Europe.
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S&K South
S&K South covers the South America, Africa and Asia-Oceania.
Latin America
Salovaara Watson has 30 offices in Latin America
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Asia
- Bangkok (also a S&K/Humane office) - trading as S&K Asia
- Satellite offices are based in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Manila City, Ho Chi Minh City, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Tashkent, Manama, Baku, Almaty, Karachi, Phnom Penh, Taguig, Taipei, Jakarta and Macau
- Hong Kong
- Makati City
- Tokyo
- Christchurch
- Wellington
- Beijing - trading as S&K China
- Satellite offices are based in Shenzen, Nanjing, Nantong and Guangzhou
- Colombo - Sri Lanka
- Seoul
- Pune - trading as S&K Pune
- Satellite offices are based in New Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata, Haryana and Bangalore
- Mumbai
Oceania
- Melbourne
- Auckland
- Brisbane
- Sydney
- Perth
- Canberra
Middle East & Africa
Salovaara Watson has 26 offices in Middle East & Africa.
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