Bite merges with Bourne, drops ‘Communications’

Bourne was acquired by Bite’s parent company, Next Fifteen, in May 2011, and brings a team of 50 employees and a list of new clients including Dell, Verizon, MetLife and Ricoh.

The announcement, posted yesterday by newly appointed incoming CEO, Andy Cunningham, explained that the combined company will offer strategy and insight, public relations, marketing communications, creative, content, and digital and technology products and services.

“As the digital world collides with the analogue, we find that the typical public-relations agency is faced with meeting the demands of both worlds,” wrote Cunningham. “The collision of these two worlds presents opportunity to offer a broader range of services to help our clients sell more stuff. And it is this opportunity that led Bite to bring Bourne into the mix.”

Andy Cunningham

According to David Ketchum, president of Bite Asia-Pacific, the new services are being launched today, simultaneously, worldwide. “Communications is still an important part of what we do, we just have more to offer,” he explained.

Bite Asia-Pacific has already started sending digital and website development work to the newly incorporated Bourne team, Ketchum said.

“We will be working on improving our service offering locally in terms of languages, marketing insights and localised planning,” he said.