Jellyfish gobbles up creative shop Social Life

Jellyfish has bought Social Life, a creative agency that specialises in entertainment brand marketing, as the independent digital performance agency prepares for growth in addressable TV advertising.

Social Life is a London-headquartered creative social agency which also has offices in Los Angeles and Amsterdam. It has a small team of fewer than 50 people but has been appointed by Netflix, Apple and Amazon to create social content since being founded by former BBC Radio 1 producers, Laura-May Coope and Alistair Parrington, in 2014.

Jellyfish said Social Life will offer brands a new standard in creative audience engagement as part of its agency amid a transformation in how audiences switch from linear television to subscriber video on demand. Several new SVoD services have launched this year, including Apple TV+, Disney+ and Britbox, as an alternative to the more established Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

The move marks Jellyfish’s first acquisition since taking an investment from the French group Firmalac last month, which valued the company at about £500m (US$667) as it looks to expand globally.

The UK-headquartered independent shop has offices in Seoul, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Singapore and Tokyo in Asia-Pacific.

Paul Mead, Jellyfish’s executive director, had sat on the board of Social Life as a non-executive director.

Rob Pierre, chief executive of Jellyfish, said: "Social Life is a business that understands the digital ecosystem natively. Like Jellyfish, it’s been built from the ground up, through a deep understanding of the changes in how we consume media."