Munich, 22 October 2009
Munich / Vienna, October, 22st, 2009. Social Media is constantly gaining importance in professional communication. The increasing user growth of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter & Co and the rapidly changing information behavior of corporate stakeholders show that Social Media is currently developing towards being a mass medium.
Decision makers in professional communication are no longer confronted with the question if participating in the digital dialog is important or not. Rather, they face the challenge to employ Social Media to establish and sustainably maintain a continuous dialog with their respective target audience. With the acquisition of Knallgrau Virtual Identity expands its Social Media portfolio. As the first web-agency in the German-speaking market Virtual Identity can offer its clients Social Media solutions as a full service provider.
Knallgrau's and Virtual Identity's competencies complement each other to the benefit of their clients. Knallgrau can offer wide experience with innovative Social Media marketing projects; Virtual Identity adds its comprehensive expertise in consulting, change management and roll-out of global governance concepts for Social Media, intranet and internet.
„The combined experiences and methods of Knallgrau and Virtual Identity add up in an ideal way. We feel confident that today’s innovative projects in Social Media will gradually be integrated in daily working routines and organizational structures of communication experts and marketeers. Together we can accompany our clients during this development and can offer support for all decisive steps,“ says Ralf Heller, founder and CEO of Virtual Identity AG.
The founders of Knallgrau, Matthias Platzer and Dieter Rappold, will continue to lead their Vienna agency. „The union of Knallgrau and Virtual Identity is the best combination of resources to offer clients in the German-speaking market a unique service portfolio in the field of Social Media,“ enthuses Dieter Rappold, CEO of vi knallgrau, about the cooperation.
Virtual Identity and Knallgrau support well-known brands and companies with the planning and realization of Social Media initiatives. Customers of Virtual Identity are among others Allianz, HypoVereinsbank, Roche and Siemens. Knallgrau is responsible for projects with BMW, MINI, E.ON, WAZ Media Group, Axel Springer AG and the BMW Sauber F1 team.
In the course of the acquisition, the former Knallgrau New Media Solutions GmbH now operates under the name of vi knallgrau GmbH.
About Virtual Identity
Virtual Identity connects brands and companies with our networked society. Founded in 1995, the agency develops Web-based solutions for brand management and corporate communication. Virtual Identity has around 80 employees at its offices in Freiburg, Munich and Berlin. Clients include: Allianz, Evonik Industries, Festo, Haufe Mediengruppe, HypoVereinsbank, Infineon, Lexware, MAN and Siemens.
About vi knallgrau GmbH
vi knallgrau has specialized in these applications and paradigms which today are summed up under the notions of Web 2.0 and Social Media. By its engagement in international conferences and its blog hoster twoday.net Knallgrau is an integral part of the German-speaking Web 2.0 ecosystem. The company headquartered in Vienna employs around 25 employees. Clients include: BMW, MINI, E.ON, Siemens, WAZ Media Group, Axel Springer, Swisscom, Radio RTL, Radio Arabella and APA.
