Boutique advertising agency Gabriel deGrood Bendt (GdB) announced Tuesday it would combine with its sister company Modern Climate and no longer operate under the GdB moniker.
The new marketing group would keep the Modern Climate name and plans to reposition itself as a "brand navigation company" with a renewed focus on strategic consulting and analytics while still offering branding, advertising, and media planning and buying.
"Since the advent of digital marketing, the number of levers marketers can pull have increased by ten or even twenty-fold," said Modern Climate President Greg Engen, in a statement. "Unfortunately, marketing budgets have stayed pretty much flat. This creates a level of complexity and guesswork that can be daunting."
The change would mean the disappearance of the GdB name which has been active in the Twin Cities marketing world for more than 20 years. Gdb was originally founded by Doug deGrood, who formerly worked at the Fallon ad agency, and Tom Gabriel and Jim Bendt, both Carmichael Lynch alums.
Throughout the years, GdB has done creative ad work for clients like Summit Brewing Co., Anytime Fitness, and Andersen Windows.
"Modern Climate, which has been around for about nine years, is less a completed canvas than GdB, which is widely known as a creative shop," said deGrood, who will remain in the company as creative chairman. "For where we envision our future, Modern Climate seemed like the more appropriate name to lean into."
St. Paul-based holding company Clear Night Group purchased GdB in 2014, and then bought Modern Climate in 2016.
