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Golden Word staff stand in front of the company's trademarked slogan: (from left) Katherine Sweeney, Victoria Concepcion, Jean Luther, Melina DeNunzio, Ashley Mills and Jenna Weston. (Photo courtesy of Golden Word)
An eight-year-old Richmond-based PR firm has partnered with an international marketing and communications group.
Golden Word, an eight-person advertising agency founded by Elizabeth Edelman, was acquired earlier this year by 5th Business, a sales and marketing group headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with offices in Phoenix and Adelaide, Australia.
Edelman said the acquisition closed in the first quarter of this year. Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed.
Edelman will continue in his lead business development role at the agency, while Golden Word will retain its name and current team, which includes managing director Jennifer Salo, who will lead the 5th Business agency. Salo also serves as director of 5th Business' other companies, marketing strategy and communications firm Clever Samurai, and sales lead generation firm 360 Leads.
Elizabeth Edelman
Edelman said he was looking to join another firm and began his search last year. He worked with New York-based M&A advisory firm Merge, where he met 5th Business and CEO Stuart Lewis. Edelman also worked with local firm Early Business Legal.
“As we continue to grow over time, we realized we could benefit from additional resources. What's really important is supporting that further growth and providing the greatest opportunities possible for our customers and employees,” Edelman said.
“One of the things that attracted me to them was they really had this mentality of, 'We want you to keep doing what you're doing. We don't want to change it. We just want to support you and make it as strong as possible and give you the resources and additional vision to help you grow the company even further,'” she said.
Lewis, who founded 5th Business in 1997, said Goldenword was a natural fit for the group, which is in a growth phase and is currently finalizing new acquisitions. Lewis launched 360 Leads in 2013 and Clever Samurai the following year.
Stuart Lewis
“We've been providing PR and social (media) services for many years so we know how to run this business and how to deliver great value to our clients,” Lewis said. “And because there's been no cross-pollination of clients, we're able to offer Golden Ward's existing clients the full range of services the group has to offer, to an appropriate extent.”
While Golden Word has focused on public relations, social media and content marketing, the partnership with 5th Business will allow it to tap into Clever Samurai's marketing strategy and creative, as well as 360 Leads' B2B lead generation, and vice versa, Edelman said.
“By adding things they didn't have, we're now able to offer our clients additional services like marketing strategy, digital marketing and design that they didn't have access to before,” she said. “Goldenword will continue to focus on PR and social media, but we can leverage other talent from our sister agencies to support our clients and make it easier for them to deliver their marketing work.”
Edelman, a UR graduate, worked for local PR firm Hodges Partnership and menswear brand Ledbury before launching Golden Word as a solo store in 2016 with Ledbury as a client.
The company has also partnered with Hardywood Park Craft Brewery and Blade & Bow Bourbon, and current clients include Shades of Light, Duke's Mayo and Garden & Gun magazine, the latter of which Edelman said he is especially proud of.
“I think it really says something when the media asks you to represent them,” she said.
Edelman and team members at last year's RVA 25 ceremony. (BizSense file)
Last year, Golden Word made it onto BizSense's list of the fastest growing companies in the RVA 25 region, with a compound annual growth rate of 87 percent over the past three years, and it also filed a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its motto, “Speak like a human.”
Edelman said having established Golden Word as a brand, he is pleased that 5th Business wants to continue it.
“To find someone who's like, I want to keep the name, I want to keep what we're doing, I want to keep the whole team, we love your clients, it's a dream come true. It's such an honor,” she said. “I've put so much time and energy into this, and I'm open to change, but I'm really proud of what we've accomplished, so it's really nice to have someone come in and say they want to continue this spirit.”
Lewis and Salo said Goldenward's goal is to grow the company by adding customers and providing additional services to existing customers. Lewis declined to disclose Goldenward's annual revenue but said the company has gained new customers since the acquisition.
Salo, who is based in Toronto but travels to Richmond quarterly and stays in touch with his team through phone calls and virtual meetings, said Goldenward will seek out clients that fit its current portfolio, which includes home furnishings, interior design and food and beverage businesses such as wineries, breweries and restaurants.
Jennifer Salo
“Our goal is to find clients that we want to help by providing a variety of services, build relationships with them, and hopefully get them to become our clients,” Salo said. “We may even get to the point where we put together sales lead generation activities and have some of our staff in the 360 Lead division start reaching out to potential clients.”
Edelman will remain with Golden Word, but the deal will allow her to step back from leading the company and pursue her lifelong interest in writing and becoming a published author, she said.
“I'm going to pursue a creative passion that I haven't had the chance to do before,” she said. “I've always wanted to be a writer. I wrote a couple of books a long time ago, but they were never published. It's just always been a passion. It's one of those things where you're like, 'Okay, I'll do it someday.' After a while, it's like, 'If not now, when?'”
Golden Ward has been based at 711 N. Alliston St. since 2019. The company previously occupied the same building as interior design firm Flourish Space in the Jackson Ward neighborhood.
The deal follows another acquisition involving a local PR firm this year: In January, Big Spoon acquired The Apple Cart, a 10-year-old consulting firm that also focuses on food and restaurant clients.
