After a year of co-habitation, two local marketing firms are taking their relationship to the next level.
The Ottawa-based companies, Extension Marketing and WSI eStrategies Ottawa, announced earlier this month that they are officially merging after sharing an office space revealed their complementary skillsets.
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After a year of co-habitation, two local marketing firms are taking their relationship to the next level.
The Ottawa-based companies, Extension Marketing and WSI eStrategies Ottawa, announced earlier this month that they are officially merging after sharing an office space revealed their complementary skillsets.
The two companies collaborated for the first time by accident, according to Pat Whalen, founder and CEO of Extension Marketing, who has taken the title of managing partner under the merger.
“We landed a new client and the client told us, ‘Hey by the way, we use this other agency for this particular service,’ and it was Mark’s agency,” recalled Whalen, referencing WSI eStrategies CEO Mark Jamieson. “It’s pretty strange for two agencies to share a client. It’s a strange relationship. But we met and we made it work.”
The dynamic was awkward at first, Whalen and Jamieson admitted.
“Typically, that sort of situation doesn’t happen,” said Whalen. “It’s often adversarial. Everyone’s trying to establish terms. But I think it was pretty clear from the outset that Mark and his team had a certain skillset that was, quite frankly, better than ours in that particular area. So why not have the two of us run this account together?
“It led to us sharing a few more accounts and then just kept snowballing from there,” Whalen added.
Whalen describes Extension Marketing as a “strategy-first” organization and a relatively new one compared to WSI. The company focuses on campaign execution and traditional and digital community-based marketing. He said its goal is to take a businessperson’s, not a marketer’s, approach.
WSI eStrategies, by contrast, focuses on tech expertise. Having grown its presence to more than 80 countries since its founding in 1995, the company specializes in tools such as SEO, paid search, enterprise-level digital advertising, and, most recently, AI integration.
“We did share some tactics that both our agencies excelled in,” said Jamieson. “But I think it was very clear from the beginning that we both had a very distinctive skillset. As our teams started growing together, I think what happened is we really started realizing that we can leverage each other’s skillsets.”
It was an arrangement that worked well, but Jamieson didn’t expect that the two businesses would become as close as they did.
In December 2023, WSI received notice from its landlord that it would need to vacate its Orléans office, leaving the company without a place to go.
But in a surprise twist, Jamieson said it didn’t take long to find a new space.
“I think it was just a coincidence that Pat and I were on a call one day with a client and I made mention of the fact that we were looking for office space,” he said. “And he made mention of the fact that he has a very large space that could use some extra bodies.”
By March 2024, WSI was moving in.
As for most roommates, it took a few weeks for the teams to adjust to the proximity, with the added tension of professional competition.
“You didn’t want to speak out loud about your clients,” said Whalen.
But soon, staff began organically connecting and collaborating with each other.
“We didn’t quite know where we stood in the grand scheme of things and it took a month or two for us all to feel comfortable in our space,” he said. “But it was an easy transition. Our teams got along very quickly. We started noticing conversations between the teams asking about skillsets. We’d even be looking at individual clients together and seeking each other's advice.
“Within eight weeks, we were all just sharing information,” Whalen added. “We weren’t sure what we were getting into, either side. I found that pretty funny.”
For Jamieson and Whalen, the situation sparked conversations about their companies’ strengths and weaknesses and how they could improve one another.
“The more we talked, the more we realized that we’ve gotta formalize this. Otherwise, it’s going to be too territorial. We both did what each other does. It would be easy for me to bring on an account and say, well, I’m not telling Mark about it because it’s my business,” said Whalen.
“I think the turning point for me was when I realized that we’ve got to do whatever’s best for the client, which to me, was to merge.”
Though they will now operate as one company, both WSI and Extension Marketing will retain their names for now.
“It’s working really well,” said Whalen. “We just landed, last week, a major client that I know for a fact we wouldn’t have been able to get on our own. Initially, we were concerned about how our clients were going to react, but they’re already saying, ‘Those guys are really good at these other things and we want to do them.’”
Jamieson added. “We’re respecting the brands and the identities that we’ve built over the years. But we are one team, one company.”
