Eleven merges into Mekanism as parent Plus Company doubles down in U.S.

San Francisco-based agency Eleven is merging into Mekanism and will assume its name.

As part of the transition that will be finalized on Oct. 31, Eleven, which has 40 employees and handles work for CommonSpirit Health, surf brand Pella and spirits brand Kraken, will become part of the Mekanism brand. 

Both agencies are owned by Canadian holding company Plus Company, which acquired Mekanism in June as part of a plan to become a bigger player in the U.S. market. Beyond scaling, this merger fits into Plus Company’s “un-network” model, which Plus Company CEO Brett Marchand said is focused on “collaboration, not competition” between agencies in the same market. Plus Company currently owns over 20 agencies including We Are Social, Socialize, Hello, Kobe, Metta, Fuseproject, All Inclusive Marketing, Aperture1, Camp Jefferson, Citizen Relations, and Cossette Media.

“Although Eleven is a very good agency, it just doesn't have the same scale as Mekanism,” Marchand said. “If you look at other markets where we have two agencies in the same area, like We Are Social and Hello, they're under one P&L. Cossette Media and Jungle Media have one P&L, Citizen Relations and Middle Child, our PR agencies have one P&L. In the case of Mekanism and Eleven, it really came down to a decision—could we support two brands in the U.S. given the size? We're just not at the size that we could support two brands. We all collectively believed that we were better off putting them together.”

This merger was part of the plan when Mekanism joined the holding company as the agency positions itself as the lead creative agency in the U.S. for Plus Company, according to Mekanism CEO Jason Harris. Mekanism, which had around 200 employees prior to the merger, will move into Eleven’s office space. That space will become Plus Company’s San Francisco office as it moves to a campus model in New York and Chicago as well. Mekanism’s New York space has become the hub for Plus’s New York campus.

The next step is making Mekanism a more full-funnel agency by adding CRM and performance capabilities, according to Harris. Marchand says the merger will add Eleven’s digital and design capabilities into the mix.

It is still being decided what role Eleven President Courtney Buechert will take within Mekanism, but he will be involved in some “key pieces of business,” with which he already has a connection, Harris said. Buechert will also remain as a U.S. chair for Plus Company.

Eleven employees will get the chance to work with Mekanism clients moving forward and vice versa. 

Currently, some of Mekanism’s clients include Peleton, OkCupid, and Jose Cuervo, which is owned by Proximo Spirits, marketer of Kraken, an Eleven client.  Mekanism recently launched a campaign for the NBA App and picked up business for sports retail company Fanatics in March. 

“The advantage is we're able to tap into Plus Company to offer services that we didn't have before,” Harris said. “That's been a real plus for our clients." 

For example, Mekanism recently won creative lead for Amazon Kids, an Amazon subscription offering catered towards children, with another Plus Company agency. “We pitched it with Citizen Relations because they needed creative and strategy plus PR, and we don’t do PR. Citizen does,” Harris said.

Currently, 15% of Plus Company’s employees are in the U.S., and its percentage of revenue coming from the market is slightly more than that, according to Marchand.

The U.S. "should probably be a third of our business and our target is to get to a billion [dollars] in net revenue,” Marchand said. “So that would double the size of the company and double the size [of Plus' business] of the U.S." 

Beyond growing Mekanism, which Marchand said could realistically become a 650-person agency at one point, Plus Company will be looking to expand other agencies in the U.S. as well.

“There's a good chance we will scale We Are Social in the U.S. as well,” Marchand said. “That might be through investing in new people and/or acquisitions. Our Citizen business is doing quite well in the U.S. We are open to and looking at both investing in talent, but also in acquisitions in the PR business. We’re [also] very interested in performance and digital media because that's a capability we have in Canada, but we don't have in the U.S.”