Profero melds with Alien Eye in Japan

Effective immediately, the combined entity will operate as Profero Japan, with James Hollow, Alien-Eye CEO and co-founder, as managing director. 

Alien-Eye bills itself as a "strategic new-media marketing" agency, and its clients include Cannondale, Lufthansa, Norton, Rakuten and Salesforce. 

Wayne Arnold, Profero's global CEO, who recently relocated to Singapore, told Campaign Asia-Pacific that Alien-Eye's local expertise and creativity will help Profero Japan serve not only international clients targeting Japan but also local clients wanting to expand beyond the country.

"Our team and their team, they're like two jigsaw pieces coming together," Arnold said. [Hollow] and Alien-Eye are incredibly strong in creative and ideation, as well as understanding the Japanese marketplace. Profero is very strong on the strategy planning and media side."

Hollow commented that with the surging economy, Alien-Eye has been seeing opportunities that it hasn't had the scale to seize. The combination of the companies will allow Profero Japan to help local brands that want to become more active abroad, and conversations with some such brands are already underway, he added.

Though the deal is an acquisition, Arnold characterised it as a merger because the teams being combined in Japan are quite similar in terms of revenue and team size.

There will be no staff reductions, and all clients will be retained, according to Arnold. The two teams have been collaborating for some time and began working in the same office as of yesterday morning, Hollow reported. Hollow will be supported by Toshiki Sato as head of strategic planning and Ryuichi Kaneda as head of account services.