New Candid CEO Rudiger (Ruud) Wanck, former Global CEO of GroupM Connect, states that both parties will benefit from the acquisition. “In an increasingly competitive digital and e-commerce driven world Millford’s expertise is becoming even more important for brands to distinguish themselves. In addition to developing a strong storyline, personality and core message, building a brand in both a physical and digital environment also requires a strategy for powerful visual components,” says Wanck. “Identity and design are the most effective tools for attracting the public’s attention and building brand recognition, both on a shop floor and in a web store.”

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Millford was founded in 1985 and is based in Leiden. The agency has won many awards and has been leading in the design of packaging lines and brand design for years, e.g. for brands as Albert Heijn, Etos, the ANWB and the Dutch Lottery. Millford, like the other agencies within the Candid platform, will continue to operate as an autonomous agency under its own name. “By joining the Candid platform, we retain our individuality, but we can immediately deepen and broaden our range and offer our customers more integrated and other disciplines,” say owners Moritz Hoekstra and Erik de Graaf. “In addition, within the platform we can increasingly and more widely translate our expertise in visual identity into Candid’s digital expertise, because offline and online are increasingly merging completely.”

The acquisition fits seamlessly into Candid’s growth ambitions. Through acquisitions of the media agencies Stroom and M2Media, the Digital Agency Group with agencies such as Online Company and Havana Harbor, social media expert Daily Dialogues, advertising agency XXS and recently Cogonez, in addition to its own specialist like cultural media agency BBK and market research company Vostradamus, Candid has become the largest independent marketing and advertising platform in The Netherlands. Despite the Covid-19 crisis and the dramatic impact on the marketing industry, the platform continues to grow and more acquisitions will follow this year, both at home and abroad. At the end of 2020, former GroupM executives Rudiger Wanck and Marcel van der Avort were appointed as CEO and CFO to further develop the national and international expansion. “With the acquisition of Millford, we are once again demonstrating the growth ambitions of our platform,” says Candid Chairman of the Board Gérard Ghazarian.

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