Cork-headquartered Granite, Ireland’s largest independent digital agency, has announced an agreement to acquire Creative Media, a Northern Ireland-founded performance marketing specialist with a significant client base across the US and Canada. This is alongside a series of senior appointments to drive its North American expansion.
The agreed acquisition will enable Granite to target revenues of $40 million by 2027. North America will account for $20 million of company revenues – half of the overall total. The deal anchors an ambitious US growth strategy, following a 400% year-on-year increase in organic North American revenue over the last 12 months. Granite’s strategy for continued expansion is backed by $10 million in growth capital from BGF, Ireland and the UK’s most active growth capital investor.
Creative Media has built an impressive client base across North America over the past 25 years. Its founder, Marcus Isherwood, will join Granite as Chief Revenue Officer, working alongside Rob Carpenter, Granite’s US-based Chief Commercial Officer. The move positions Granite as a strong independent alternative to holding company agencies for US enterprises seeking digital transformation, performance marketing and AI-powered solutions.
A quarter century of North American market expertise
Marcus Isherwood founded Creative Media in Northern Ireland in May 2000 and grew it into a team of more than 40 specialists serving over 30 clients across the US and Canada.
Marcus Isherwood, CEO of Creative Media, said: “I’ve spent 25 years building client relationships in North America with a simple philosophy: every dollar spent on marketing has to deliver a measurable return. That’s exactly how Granite operates, but at enterprise scale and with technical depth I haven’t seen in an independent agency. Joining forces with this team gives our clients something genuinely new in the market.”
Enterprise-grade delivery, independent agency model
The deal will grow Granite’s workforce to 200+ specialists across strategy, engineering, design, data and marketing. Working directly with clients, practice leads spend over 70% of their time on client deliverables, not pitches. This model has delivered a Net Promoter Score of 71 against an industry average of 51, an average client tenure of nine years, and 87% of business from repeat customers and referrals.
The company serves major enterprise clients including Intel, Pepsi, Sysco, Iron Mountain, Concentrix, Aer Lingus, Tesco and Dalata Hotel Group. Granite was shortlisted for Best Large Agency of the Year at the 2025 US Agency Awards.
This will be the ninth acquisition Granite has made since 2020, and its most significant step into North America. Granite’s ambitions are further strengthened by the recent appointment of Joy Marcus as Non-Executive Chair, bringing more than two decades of leadership experience across digital media, technology and venture capital. She has held executive roles at major organisations including Condé Nast, Time Warner and MTV Networks.
Rob Carpenter, Global Chief Commercial Officer, Granite, said: “The US market is ready for a different kind of agency. Enterprise clients are tired of paying holding company rates for junior teams, fragmented delivery and dashboards nobody reads. We’re building something that doesn’t exist yet in this market: an independent agency with genuine enterprise capability, senior talent on every account and full accountability for outcomes. The agreed acquisition of Creative Media, the leadership appointments and Joy joining our board are not incremental moves.”
Conor Buckley, CEO of Granite and EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2025 finalist, added: “North America has always been central to our growth strategy. The Creative Media agreed acquisition, Marcus’s appointment, and the team we’re building in the US are all part of a deliberate plan to bring Granite’s model to the world’s largest digital market. We’ve proven this works in Europe and the Middle East, and we’re actively pursuing acquisitions in North America to deepen our capabilities and accelerate our growth.”
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