SWNS Media Group has acquired digital content consultancy Creatorville to bring “social-first firepower” into the business.
Creatorville was founded in 2021 by Sam Barcroft, who previously built digital content business Barcroft Studios and sold it to Future in 2019.
Barcroft will now become chief executive and a shareholder of SWNS Media Group.
The rest of the SWNS Media Group entails: news and lifestyle content agency SWNS, branded content agency 72Point, and market research business OnePoll.
The company said the acquisition of Creatorville would support growth in all three of these areas by expanding “its capabilities into the creator economy, combining its long-standing expertise in journalism, earned media and brand communications with Creatorville’s expertise in social video, digital publishing, and audience-first content production”.
As a new division within the group, Creatorville will “support the growth of standout content brands, create new video formats, and nurture next-generation talent”.
Barcroft said the group has “always been an innovative and entrepreneurial business. By bringing Creatorville into the group, we’re combining SWNS’s journalistic depth and 72Point’s first class creativity and broad spectrum of brand and agency clients with additional social-first firepower. Together, we’ll help clients connect with fast-changing audiences through impactful storytelling.”
Current chief executive Paul Walters is becoming non-executive chairman and co-founder Andrew Young is becoming a non-executive director.
SWNS will continue to be led by Martin Winter as managing director while Chris Pharo will remain chief executive of 72Point.
Walters said: “Our shared long-term vision is to transform our business into the UK’s most exciting and effective media group.
“By combining our proven expertise in news generation and creative communications with Sam’s leadership in building communities around outstanding content, we will build our business on our shared journalistic foundations, amplified by the creativity, agility, and reach of a digital-native production studio.”
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