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The acquisition makes The Lucre Group the seventh independent agency to join The Audience Collective, which already includes brand communications agency Ponderosa; market research and insight agency Spark; and digital media strategy house Crunch.
The Lucre Group specialises in food and drink, home and lifestyle, travel and leisure, and tech. It has offices in London and Leeds and about 40 staff.
The Audience Collective, which was founded in 2019, now employs more than 160 people in the UK and Ireland, working with more than 240 organisations and brands in sectors including FMCG, higher education, travel, and food and drink.
Tamarind Wilson-Flint and Sophie Spyropoulos, owner-directors of The Lucre Group, will remain with the business. They founded the agency 16 years ago with airline Jet2, which remains a client. Its other clients have included PizzaExpress, Park Plaza hotels, and Berkeley Homes.
In August, The Lucre Group announced it had launched a global network of agencies, called L’Attitude, to work on multinational programmes. It has also launched an influencer arm to sit alongside its content and creative hub.
Wilson-Flint and Spyropoulos said in a statement: “Joining The Audience Collective provides us with a fantastic opportunity to really scale our business, while offering further specialist marketing expertise to our clients and new career opportunities for our team. We’re delighted to join the Collective and we’re very much looking forward to the next exciting chapter in the Lucre story.”
Steve Henry, group chief executive of The Audience Collective, said: “We’re delighted to welcome The Lucre Group on board as we enter the next stage of growth. When we originally formed the group in 2019, we knew we were missing one key service offering, and that was PR.
“We have an incredibly strong vision for the future and ambitious plans to match. Within five years, we aim to be a £100m business operating in over 50 markets, with offices in five countries, and we felt that Lucre’s values and forward-thinking, ambitious nature matched our own. Their client base speaks for itself and, with a highly talented group of individuals, the agency is a great fit. Lucre’s dedicated content arm – Rich – also offers an exciting proposition for all of the agencies in the Collective.”
