Pentland Group, the parent company for brands including Speedo, Ellesse and Berghaus, "is ramping up its in-house advertising efforts" as it hunts 56 marketers, creatives and designers to join its in-house agency, according to John McCarthy of THE DRUM. Pentland Global Marketing Dir Sean Hastings said that "beyond just delivering efficiencies," it will turn the company into a "more professional" brand-building organization. Pentland made a "significant investment" in Reebok in '81. A decade later, "an acquisition spree saw it snap up brands like Ellesse, Speedo, Berghaus and Mitre." In '05, it "muscled into retail," taking a majority stake in JD Sports. Hastings said that Pentland is "still not done with brand acquisitions but with its current roster it needs to work more efficiently." Until recently, "almost all of its individual brands used their own ad agencies." Pentland used to work with "an enormous amount of agencies." Hastings: "We had a huge number, it made no sense, now when we look at ourselves not as individual brands as a group" (THE DRUM, 2/20).
