Vintank Acquired By Award-Winning Digital Agency

Vintank, which has served the wine industry customer insights from more than a billion social media conversations has been acquired by W2O Group, a diversified digital agency in San Francisco providing advertising, public relations, software and creative services.

The acquisition was announced March 30. No purchase price was given. Vintank will probably be rebranded, said Mabray.

According to the company’s statement:

“To reach the majority of a brand’s audience, we are building a suite of services and software to reach the 1% who create content and the 9% who share it,” said Jim Weiss, chairman and chief executive office of W2O Group.

“A modern day media offering will be defined, in the future, by who has the best influencer algorithms and media team, combined with the ability to know exactly who your audience is and how to most effectively reach them. Guessing is not a strategy.”

Scroll down for the full text of the official announcement which is reproduced in its entirety at the bottom of this article.

W2O

According to the company statement:

“Founded and led by Chairman and CEO Jim Weiss, W2O Group is an independent network of complementary marketing, communications, research and development firms focused on integrated business solutions to drive change and growth through “pragmatic disruption” for the world’s leading brands and organizations.”

W2O Group’s network includes:

• WCG,
• Twist Marketing,
• BrewLife, and
• W2O Ventures

The company has revenues of at least $75 million and maintains 11 offices in the United States and Europe.

W2O Group: 2014 Digital Agency of the Year

For the fourth time, W2O Group in 2014 bested some of the best-known names in the business — Edelman, Ogilvy Public Relations, Shift Communications, Weber Shandwick — to take the top honor of the Digital Agency of the Year.

“According to the Sabre Awards seb site,, “Under the leadership of founder Jim Weiss and president Bob Pearson, W2O is now gaining traction as a channel partner — rather than competitor — for PR agencies that can’t build up their analytics and software capabilities fast enough and need a competitive edge.

“No doubt, W2O’s investment is paying off — in 2013, W2O’s revenues soared 20% to $75 million, meaning the independently-held group has grown almost two-thirds since 2011 with its digital-focused portfolio that includes P&G, BMC Software, Verizon and Medtronic. — AaS”

Vintank

Paul Mabray and James Jory founded Vintank in 2009 to provide winery and small business owners with an advanced social engagement and customer relationship management (CRM) platform.

This allowed clients to make sense of social media data and enable better marketing and communications with their markets. Vintank data has analyzed communications from more than 30 million social wine consumers and over 1,000 wine brands

Mabray has more than 20 years in the wine and technology industry. According to the acquisition announcement Mabray was the founder and CEO of the first and most successful wine ecommerce SaaS Company: WineDirect.com.

Jory has been a technologist for more than 25 years, and was the chief architect for eBay ProStores.

Vintank’s technology targets customer engagement, calculates social media health for brands and offers clients the proprietary geo-fencing tools it developed in order to support lead generation and prospective outreach.

“VinTank provides us with a way to create agile audience engines for a brand, where we can learn what an audience is doing online, understand what content they like, evaluate who they follow and respect and, ultimately, redefine what “customer relationship management” means.” said Bob Pearson, president of W2O Group.

Vintank: The Next Chapter

More about the merger and the people can be found by reading:

• This post from the WCG blog, and
• This blog post from Paul Mabray and James Jory.

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Official Announcement

W2O Group Acquires VinTank Social Engagement & CRM Platform to Focus on the “9 Percent” and Grow Its S²aaS-Driven Business

San Francisco, March 25, 2015 – W2O Group announced today that it has acquired VinTank, a social engagement and customer relationship management (CRM) platform, to enable and enhance its technology-enabled client service offerings, founded by Paul Mabray and James Jory to service winery and small business owners.

“To reach the majority of a brand’s audience, we are building a suite of services and software to reach the 1% who create content and the 9% who share it,” said Jim Weiss, chairman and chief executive office of W2O Group. “A modern day media offering will be defined, in the future, by who has the best influencer algorithms and media team, combined with the ability to know exactly who your audience is and how to most effectively reach them. Guessing is not a strategy.”

Mabray has over 20 years in the wine and technology industry, and was the founder and CEO of the first and most successful wine ecommerce SaaS Company: WineDirect.com. Jory has been a technologist for over 25 years, and was the chief architect for eBay ProStores. Their technology targets customer engagement, calculates social media health for brands and implements innovative geo-fencing tools to support lead generation and prospective outreach.

“Our team of data scientists can identify and build an audience for a brand, regardless of size,” said Bob Pearson, president of W2O Group. “VinTank provides us with a way to create agile audience engines for a brand, where we can learn what an audience is doing online, understand what content they like, evaluate who they follow and respect and, ultimately, redefine what “customer relationship management” means. Our goal is to build audiences that have the potential to shape the market.”

Though VinTank has primarily focused on the wine and hospitality industries, its software has been recognized as one of the leaders in contextual customer engagement and is uniquely positioned to bring its innovative solution to any industry. As such, it will be a key critical piece of the W2O software S²aaS suite, which enhances and enables service excellence.

“Our vision has always been to transform customer relationships and understanding through intelligent context,” said Mabray. “Joining the W2O team is a perfect fit to couple their powerful analytics and audience identifications tools with our data driven engagement software to supercharge the relationship between brands and their customers.”

Read more about what the acquisition brings to W2O Group and the innovative approach Mabray will bring to the software practice on our Common Sense blog here.

About W2O Group

Founded and led by Chairman and CEO Jim Weiss, W2O Group is an independent network of complementary marketing, communications, research and development firms focused on integrated business solutions to drive change and growth through “pragmatic disruption” for the world’s leading brands and organizations. W2O Group’s network includes WCG, Twist, BrewLife and W2O Ventures with11 offices in the United States and Europe. For more information, please visit http://w2ogroup.com.

About VinTank

VinTank is the leading software solution for social media management for the wine and hospitality industry. Measuring over one billion conversations about wine, profiling over 30 million social wine consumers and serving over 1000 wine brands, VinTank helps wineries, restaurants and hotels connect and understand their customers in ways never before imagined. VinTank – Power Social Intelligence for your Business. For more information, please visit www.vintank.com.