Two Viacom alums are combining with an award-winning creative agency to challenge Madison Avenue and are already pulling in $100 million in revenue

• Marketing and data strategy firm Schireson Associates has acquired independent creative agency Stun Creative and brand strategy firm Blackbird to form a new marketing company named Known.
• Known is led by former Viacom execs Kern Schireson and Ross Martin and co-founders of Los Angeles-based creative shop Stun.
• It's pitching market research, data science, strategy and creative for advertisers.
• The company says it's pulling in revenue of more than $100 million from clients like Google, Microsoft, and Universal Music Group, but it faces plenty of competition.
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There's a new marketing company on the block - and it claims it can give big holding companies and consultancies a run for their money.

Marketing and data strategy firm Schireson Associates has acquired independent creative agency Stun Creative and brand strategy firm Blackbird to form a new company called Known. The companies were acquired through capital that Schireson raised from the Intermediate Capital Group in 2019.

"Creative without science doesn't make sense anymore - it's dead," Kern Schireson, former chief digital officer at Viacom and CEO at Schireson, who became Known's chairman and CEO, told Business Insider. "Because whatever your intuition is about your audience, it's not as good as the facts about them."

In addition to Schireson, Known is led by former Viacom EVP of marketing strategy and Blackbird CEO Ross Martin, who's president and chief experience officer; and Stun co-founders and principals Brad Roth and Mark Feldstein as presidents of its studios division. Jeff Kingsley is chief operating officer.

The move comes at a time when ad agencies face tremendous pressure from marketers demanding that they keep pace with changes like people blocking ads and growing privacy concerns. Known's pitch is that it can help clients deal with these complexities, and handle everything from strategy and creative to media planning and buying.

"The advertising industry is going through massive transformation, and we think we're writing the next chapter of that transformation," Martin said. "Most of these needs are not new. They're just getting more complicated, intense and existential."

Known says it is pulling in more than $100 million in revenue

Schireson and Martin worked together at Viacom when Martin ran Scratch, Viacom's creative consulting arm, in the late-2000s and early-2010s. Schireson helped build Vantage, Viacom's technology platform that helps advertisers reach their target TV audiences across its channels.

But they wanted to build a better model for advertising, and decided they needed to leave Viacom to do it. They joined forces with Stun, for its willingness to embrace a data-driven approach to creative. The name Known is meant to suggest it can help brands know themselves, their customers, and thereby, become known in the rest of the world.

The three entities began working together last fall and had combined revenue of $100 million in 2019, according to the company. Their clients range from established companies like Google and Microsoft to startups like Beyond Meat and CBD company Green Roads.

Known offers market research, data science, strategy and creative

Known claims it's better than incumbent agencies at everything from helping clients with targeting to optimizing campaigns, and from picking influencers to developing new product lines.

A typical project starts with market research, relying on both qualitative and quantitative surveys. Known's data team then builds audience segments based on the research and anonymized online behavior data from vendors, and the creatives then develop ads based on the findings.

"We want to be able to tell stories that actually have an effect," said Mark Feldstein, president of Known Studios. "The only way to do that is to understand who we're talking to and what messages we need to tell. And you can't get that from just a traditional creative brief."

For a navigation app, Known used focus groups, behavioral web data and panel information to identify a subset of users as being likely to go to restaurants after they used the app for directions. Then it created a campaign for the navigation app with a restaurant review app.

Known has also built its own technology to buy and plan media rather than licensing it as other agencies do. The tech plugs into ad platforms to automatically start and stop campaigns and change bids, said Natasha Potashnik, Known's VP of data science.

Known's tech stack can handle small tasks so employees can focus on strategy, like trying different CPM pricing with bids over the course of the day. In this way, Known worked with an e-commerce giant from outside the US that was trying to attract US sellers to its platform. Known said it helped the company slash its cost per acquisition in just a few weeks from $5,700 to $1,900.

"We can deliver actual results that improve someone's marketing or business using the power of data and technology and science," said Nathan Hugenberger, Known's chief technology officer.

Clients say Known's approach is working, but it faces plenty of competition

Citi has worked with Known on several projects, said Carla Hassan, Citi's global chief brand officer. She said Citi was drawn to Known's expertise and team approach.

"There is a lot of power behind uniting PhD data scientists with top strategists and leading creative minds, which builds a really rich and unique agency culture and is also an essential ingredient to developing blue-sky solutions for clients," she said.

"When you look at their collective expertise, they're on a continuum as opposed to being in silos," said Will Tanous, EVP and head of global communications for Universal Music Group, another Known client. "And that structure enables them to develop insights, deliver creative and then iterate on the creative as more data comes in."

But Known has plenty of competition. Traditional holding companies like IPG and Publicis are acquiring data companies like Acxiom and Epsilon to stay competitive. Other companies like Plan A, You & Mr Jones and Stagwell Group are also pitching themselves as new ad agency models.

Despite the competition, Known remains optimistic.

"If you grew up in advertising and marketing 1.0, this is not your sport," Schireson said. "I get that you are a great basketball player, but you do not understand esports."