Redballoon parent, The Big Red Group, acquires experience company Adrenaline
Parent company of Redballoon, The Big Red Group, has acquired experiences company Adrenaline. The deal sees BRG claim to be the third largest experience marketplace in the world.
The announcement:
RedBalloon parent company acquires experiences business, Adrenaline
The Big Red Group will deliver an experience every minute and is now considered the third largest pure play experience marketplace in the world.
Adrenaline.com.au today joins RedBalloon as a subsidiary of the Big Red Group (BRG), the largest pure play aggregator of experiences in Australia*, and considered the third largest globally.
The BRG is poised to further broaden the appeal of experiences to new audiences by actively seeking to acquire new marketplace brands with a vision to scale domestically and propel the business into international markets.
During FY19 the BRG will serve an experience every minute across Australia and New Zealand through its various subsidiary brands.
BRG Co-Founder and spokesperson Naomi Simson says the acquisition cements the Group’s commitment to customers on both sides of the marketplace, specifically thousands of experience supply partners.
“The acquisition of the Adrenaline business in Australia complements our existing assets; RedBalloon, known for experience gifting and Redii.com, delivering experiences in the B2B reward and recognition space. This deal brings a new adventure-focused audience to the BRG,” Ms Simson said.
“We see momentum and demand building for experiences that serve different purposes for our customers – from gifting to team events, bucket lists, travel and the ‘things to do’ market.
“With a multi-brand strategy we can expand our range to appeal to different audiences with different experience needs.
“We work with approximately 3000, mostly small business, experience supply partners across Australia and New Zealand. As experience aggregators, the BRG offers its partners another distribution channel, delivering repeat customers, brand reach and world-class technology as part of our shared service portfolio.”
Simson said this is the Group’s first acquisition, however there are a number of other local and international brands the BRG is eyeing to join its stable of online experience retailers.
“Our job is to make sure each customer is being served appropriately, while also growing the business for our partners and deepening our authority in the experience category,” Ms Simson said.
“We’re committed to staying at the leading edge of technology and have invested greatly in infrastructure to build a globally scalable platform. An investment justified by the economies of scale achieved in serving different audiences from the one system.”
Adrenaline has moved into the BRG head office in Sydney, under the guidance of Julia Wilson as GM, who also runs the BRG Marketics (Albert AI) business.
The brands will remain separate, but will leverage the BRG service, marketing and technology stacks to drive growth in the face of market headwinds, such as the shift towards mobile and an increasing demand for personalisation.
From a Big Red Group media release.
