WPP, headed up by chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, has bought New York-based field marketing agency K&L for an undisclosed sum.
K&L has clients including American Express, Boeing, Kraft and Unilever, and specialises in product demonstrations at live events, tradeshows and shopping centre tours. For the year ending December 31 2004, the firm, which launched in 1990, had revenues of $3.5m (£1.86m).
Although it has a small full-time team of just 25, the firm draws on a network of 700 field marketing representatives across the US.
The UK-based Tarantula has clients including Coca-Cola, Coral, the Tetley Group and Virgin. As well as the UK, WPP has also acquired the firm's assets in Japan.
For the year ending December 2003, Tarantula had revenues of £1.8m.
In a statement, WPP said that the investments continued WPP's strategy of developing its networks in faster growing functional areas.
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