Lewis PR acquires agency Piston, whose clients include Sunglass Hut and Cars.com
Global communications agency Lewis PR has acquired Piston, a San Diego-based agency that specializes in digital marketing with clients including AAA, AARP, BareMinerals, Cars.com, Sunglass Hut, and Yakult.
Piston president John Hartman
The deal closed on 23 Feb 2015, and specific terms of the deal are currently undisclosed.
Piston will operate under Lewis Pulse, the agency’s digital marketing branch. It will operate alongside prior web design acquisition Purestone and will aim to strengthen Lewis’ digital capabilities, moving it into paid media advertising.
Stephen Corsi, SVP at Lewis Pulse, said in a statement: “We’re seeing a huge uptick in demand for paid media programs – search engine marketing, online advertising, mobile programs,”
“Piston combines the three things you need to get that right – strong creative, strategic media buying at scale with deep analytics,” he added.
Piston was founded by CEO Michael Chaney and president John Hartman in 2008. While Hartman will continue to run Piston as a division, Chaney will take a non-executive role.
In 2014, Piston had revenues of $.8.4 m. Lewis has global revenues of more than $72m and combined US revenue of more than $37m.
The deal is the first in what is expected to be a number of acquisitions to be made by Lewis PR in the next few years. Previous Lewis PR acquisitions include Leads United, PageOne PR, and DMG.