Michael Levensohn
Times Herald-Record
Posted: January 10, 2010
GOSHEN — The public-relations people would call this one a blockbuster.
It’s what they do.
Focus Media, the largest advertising and public-relations firm in Orange and Sullivan counties, is acquiring Madden Communications, the largest P.R. firm in Rockland County.
Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal should be finalized Monday. It’s been years in the making.
“We had a chance over the last four years to professionally work together on projects, and there has been a tremendous synergy,” said Josh Sommers, founder and president of Focus Media and a Times Herald-Record columnist.
The past year has been a whirlwind for Focus. The company lost several clients early on, but then Sommers followed his own advice on how to survive a recession and ramped up his marketing efforts.
“By the summer, we had grown significantly in the double digits compared to last year,” Sommers said. “We didn’t hold on by our fingernails. We grew significantly.”
Focus has made substantial inroads in Orange County in recent years, locking up contracts with the Orange County Chamber of Commerce and SUNY Orange, and, most recently, Orange Regional Medical Center.
In a market where most P.R. agencies are one-man shops in home offices, Focus is about to go from two offices to four, and from 10 employees to 14.
The firm will operate out of its new headquarters in Goshen, with branches in Bridgeville and Chestnut Ridge. Later this year, it will open an office in White Plains, a springboard into Westchester and Bergen counties.
The merger is a marriage of contiguous territories and complementary strengths.
Sommers is the creative pitchman, an audacious promoter who held his first news conference while in high school. A former radio DJ, he’s repackaged himself as a spin meister of another kind — a bold marketer and political strategist.
He helped engineer Democrats’ takeover of the Sullivan County Legislature in 2003, and last fall aided Joe DeStefano’s return to power in Middletown.
Bill Madden, president of Madden Communications, is the studied and experienced hand, a former managing editor of The Journal News in Rockland and Westchester. As Focus’ senior vice president, he’ll lead the charge into the lower Hudson Valley.
“In Westchester, the competition will be different,” Madden said. “There are some mature agencies over there “» but they aren’t as contemporary as ours.
“I think, creatively, our firm is ahead of all the Westchester firms.”
