You’d Better Think – THINK!

You better think (think) think about what you’re trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think), let your mind go, let yourself be free!

Nobody says it better than the Queen of Soul herself yet there’s a point to my having interrupted your day with Aretha’s musical rant. That being to both inform Revenews readers who track CGI Holdings/Think Partnership (THK) and to make a point. The point?

You need me (need me) and I need you (don’t you know)
Without each other there ain’t nothing people can do

Stated more plainly (and having spent a few years doing PR work myself), it’s best to engage and track the blogosphere as you would any other form of media or word-of-mouth marketing vehicle. It’s also smart business to feed the blogosphere… put your arm around it and cuddle up. This would be my invitation to THK to do just that on a more frequent and direct basis. Heck, David Lewis has provided you with my cel phone number!

Nice to Meet You
Like many who read Revenews, THK reached out to me recently. I can appreciate their having done so given the fact that I like to discuss their announcements such as the recent Morex Marketing Group deal. In reaching out to me they pointed out that “there’s more to the story” and that others in the trade media had noticed my facts and proceeded to distort reality (something that I cannot control).

Tell it Sista!
In looking back at my July 15 entry, I’m not surprised that they didn’t like it but I am surprised that they didn’t take the approach of telling the whole story to begin with. Simply stated, why announce such a major deal and point ONLY to a broken Web site when describing the business… further knowing there is not an ounce of information on the company being acquired by “Googling” them?

Rather than speculate, I cited my only sources available: an analyst’s interpretation (the “source” I refer to) of their press release and a trade news article‘s interpretation. I also reviewed the media release itself. All three sources indicated the same details. These were published, in summary, in my entry.

Where’s the Beef?
Here’s what you’ve been waiting for… the juicy details were recently made to me which I, today, publish for everyone’s digestion. These include:

* The day the media release was presented coincided with a “complete makeover” which is why we see the broken links

* Morex was founded years ago with an offline direct marketing component that, in essence, revolved around capturing data on prenatal mothers using a variety of online media. Essentially, they have traditionally leveraged other Web partners (i.e. co-registration) to secure data on moms to be sold off as leads to a variety of other non-Web entities. The claimed data capture reach? 10 million Web users per day.

* To date, Babytobee.com has produced less than 2% of Morex’s overall monthly revenue. Again, it’s currently being re-vamped and I am told this is being done by sister company WebSourced.

* To reiterate, THK is not paying $42 million cash or cash/stock up front for the company; there is an earn-out clause in the deal, as I stated in my original entry

Personally, I don’t find the fact that there’s “something else going on here” inside this company to be a shocker. The folks over at THK, like those at public powerhouse Marchex, know what they’re doing on the due diligence side. I’m glad we were able to have more insight on this particular deal.

Okay naaaw. Tawlk amongst yerselves and have some nice caawfee tawlk.