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Allen & Gerritsen (A&G) has launched a customer experience technology agency, CeCo Digital, to help marketers keep and grow loyal customers beyond the sale.
The agency has tapped Bain partner Raj Heda to lead the new spinoff.
CeCo Digital aims to provide marketers with integrated systems across communications, customer experience, and loyalty. The agency will create technologies, digital products, and business systems that enhance the customer experience.
It will operate as a standalone offering from A&G, but the two will work together when clients are seeking what the other agency offers.
“It’s not enough for marketing to get people in the door anymore,” said Ryan Mulloy, chief customer officer at CeCo Digital. “CMOs need customers to stay longer, spend more, and tell their friends about you. And that takes technology partners who understand the role of brand, differentiation, and audience needs.”
Why a separate agency?
In 2021, A&G acquired Carter Edwards & Company, headed by Mulloy, a former Sapient executive. The company, which provided brands including Dunkin’ and Biogen with customer experience solutions, was folded into A&G, and the Carter Edwards name went away.
“It was hugely successful, until it was not,” admitted Andrew Graff, CEO of A&G.
The offering gave A&G clients access to customer experience and tech capabilities, but sunsetting the Carter Edwards name made it difficult to gain traction. A&G isn’t known for leading-edge customer experience solutions, but rather for communications and creativity, Graff said.
As a result, neither tech talent nor brands were beating down the doors to join what many viewed as a traditional ad agency.
“We were having a hard time attracting business specific to this under A&G, which also became a talent challenge,” said Graff.
Though the CeCo will operate under the A&G umbrella—on the agency’s website, it’s billed as CeCo, together with A&G—Graff hopes as a separate brand, CeCo can now attract the people and projects it needs to be successful.
Leading through tech
CeCo is what Graff calls “Carter Edwards 2.0,” with Mulloy heading up the agency as Heda comes in to lead the tech practice.
Graff called Heda a “remarkably different kind of technology executive than agencies typically have.”
As a former partner at Bain & Company, with experiences at BCG, Sapient, and PWC, Heda has led large-scale digital transformation efforts for brands including Morgan Stanley, Sony, Fidelity, Molina Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Unilever, and American Airlines.
“CeCo gives me the chance to see the difference my work makes,” said Heda in a statement. “At the big consultancies, my focus was on developing strategies for clients who would build technology themselves and often overlook the marketing needs. Here we can get involved in the CX vision and apply a human lens to create authentic customer value.”
The name CeCo has a double meaning. CeCo was the street Mulloy grew up on, but it also is a shortening of Carter Edwards Company. Currently, the group has about 10 employees, most based in A&G’s Boston office.
For Graff, CeCo is an opportunity to back its integrated agency services with strong tech capabilities.
“It takes too much work to get a customer, and just seconds to lose one. You can’t have a great, integrated agency without really thinking about great operations technology,” said Graff.
