Dentsu Scales Creative in Germany with Acquisition of RCKT

Above (left to right): Simon Ueberheide (RCKT partner); Paulina Habben (RCKT partner); Lisa Teicher (RCKT co-founder and managing director); Karin Zimmermann (CEO dentsu DACH); Nils Seger (RCKT co-founder and managing director); Karolin Hewelt (RCKT co-founder and managing director)

Dentsu Group Inc. announced today that it has acquired RCKT, a leading German digital-first brand, communications and creative agency. 

RCKT will now join Dentsu Creative, dentsu’s sole global creative network outside of Japan, bolstering its business in Germany with a talented team of more than 80 people, expanding its local capabilities with expertise and services including Creative Content, Digital Marketing, Employer Branding, UI & UX, Customer Experience and Communication Strategy. 

RCKT emerged from Berlin's vibrant and creative start-up scene in 2015 and has grown into one of Germany’s leading digital-first creative agencies. The company is led by the founding team of Karolin Hewelt, Lisa Teicher and Nils Seger and works for top brands and clients such as the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Metro, Schneider Electric, Henkel, Pinterest, Babbel, Pfizer, Hochland und Klarna.

Dentsu Creative’s clear mission to transform brands and businesses through the power of "Modern Creativity" aligns perfectly with RCKTs ambition of producing meaningful creative work. With particular expertise in sustainability, employer branding and employee experience, and product innovation, it’s a natural fit with Dentsu Creative’s ideas that Create Culture, Change Society and Invent the Future. The RCKT brand will be retained during a period of integration, becoming known as “RCKT, a Dentsu Creative Company” with immediate effect. 

They will work closely with the existing Dentsu Creative Germany team to develop joint go-to-market plans to accelerate growth across dentsu’s businesses in the local market, as well as support the network across the region. 

The acquisition realises dentsu’s strategy of offering integrated client solutions across the entire customer journey. Dentsu Germany now offers a powerhouse of capabilities, with an enhanced creative offering fuelling its inherent deep media knowledge, UX/UI and digital transformation expertise. Collaborating across creative, media and CXM, dentsu can deliver real business outcomes for the brands it serves.

In becoming part of Dentsu Creative, RCKT joins not only a network of more than 3,200 diverse talents in dentsu’s DACH organisation, but also market leading Dentsu Creative agencies in the EMEA region. With six agency of the year accolades in 2023 in the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Italy and Nigeria, Dentsu Creative spans 9,000 people across 46 markets.

Karin Zimmermann, dentsu CEO DACH & Germany added, “We are taking a decisive step to establish a holistic and scaled creative offering for our clients in the German market and so are delighted to welcome this young, digital-first creative agency to the dentsu family as an essential part of our Modern Creative offer. We have successfully worked on clients together in the past and they’re a perfect match in terms of strategic mindset, people and customer focus, and agile ways of working. The chemistry between my leadership team and Karolin, Lisa, and Nils felt right from the start. RCKT is a vibrant, inspiring addition to dentsu and will help us build Germany into a creative hotspot for the network.”

Karolin Hewelt, RCKT co-founder and managing director stated, "In recent years we have seen a radical shift in the standards of creativity, campaigns and communication. As an interdisciplinary creative agency, we have a response to this change that resonates in the marketplace. We share Dentsu Creative’s vision of Modern Creativity and by joining forces, we can bring our solutions to market on a larger scale. Working with the entire dentsu network, we have found an environment that values and encourages entrepreneurship, innovation and a digital approach to creative excellence.”