Deloitte has acquired Acne, a Swedish creative agency that designs marketing and advertising campaigns for companies such as Ikea, H&M, Spotify, Telenor and Max in Europe.
Acne will be part of the Deloitte Digital unit in the Deloitte North West Europe firm. Deloitte formed Deloitte North West Europe in June, incorporating the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries.
Based in Stockholm, Acne was founded in 1996 and focuses on storytelling for brands, especially in the lifestyle and luxury retail areas, offering them creative, strategic, digital, film and photography services across Europe. For Ikea, Acne created a successful Twitter campaign ironically comparing a $2,145 Balenciaga tote bag to a similar-looking $0.99 blue shopping bag from Ikea.
Acne is Deloitte’s second acquisition this summer of a creative agency as it steadily builds its creative digital consultancy Deloitte Digital. In June, it announced the acquisition of Market Gravity, a design consultancy. Last year, it acquired the San Francisco-based advertising agency Heat (see
“The acquisition of Acne is an important move towards Deloitte Digital offering a full range of digital and creative services, with clients increasingly looking for a partner with multidisciplinary skills,” said Paul Thompson, head of Deloitte Digital for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in a statement. “We aim to deliver our clients’ ambitions, whether that be launching a new strategy, product or service. By combining Deloitte’s deep data and technological expertise, with Acne’s exceptional creative experience, together we will help build brands for the digital age.”
As part of the latest deal, Acne executive chairman Victor Press and CEO David Olsson will continue to lead the team under the Acne name. Financial terms were not disclosed. Deloitte ranked number 1 on Accounting Today’s 2017 list of the Top 100 Firms. For fiscal year 2016, Deloitte announced global revenue of $36.8 billion.
Olsson will become managing director of Acne. “Although Acne and Deloitte Digital come from different backgrounds with different skillsets, we share similar cultures and views on how to best address brands’ challenges today,” he said in a statement.
