Industry | Consumer goods |
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Founded | Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1905 |
Founder |
|
Headquarters | |
Area served | North America, Australia |
Key people |
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Services | Sales and marketing |
Revenue | $1b |
Owner | Private Equity |
Number of employees | 40,000 |
Website |
www |
Crossmark, Inc., stylized as CROSSMARK, is a sales and marketing services company that operates within the consumer goods industry. [2] [3] [4] The company was established in 1905 by Willis Johnson and E. Leslie Hunt in Fort Smith, Arkansas as a provision supply point for groups traveling to the Oklahoma Territory. [2] [5] [6] Crossmark contributes research and data to the Food Marketing Institute. [7] The company serves grocery, mass, club, drug, convenience store, and home improvement channels. [8]
The company was founded in 1906 as Johnson and Hunt Merchandise Brokers in Fort Smith, Arkansas. [9] In 1914, the company was renamed as Willis Johnson & Company and operations moved to Little Rock, Arkansas.[ citation needed]
In 1943, President Roosevelt named Willis Johnson Sr. to the National Office of Price and Administration, a two-year assignment.[ citation needed]
In 1944, the W.L. Gordon Company formed in Dallas, Texas. In 1953 the Phillips Brokerage Company was created in Birmingham, Alabama.[ citation needed]
In 1977, the Willis Johnson Company called on Sam Walton. In 1981, Willis Johnson Company changes its name to SalesMark.[ citation needed]
In 1995, the three companies and alpha one merges.[ citation needed]
In 1997, Crossmark was one of three companies that collectively controlled 75 percent of the sales and marketing services industry. [5] In 2012, The Dallas Morning News reported that the Plano, Texas-based Crossmark had 34,000 employees and an estimated annual revenue of $1 billion. [10] [2] [5] In December 2012, a majority of the company was sold to the private equity firm Warburg Pincus. [11] [12]
In October 2013, Mike Graen joined CROSSMARK as Vice President/Managing Director for CROSSMARK's Center for Collaboration in Bentonville, Arkansas, which opened in July 2014. [13] [14]
Crossmark's services include headquarter sales, retail merchandising, in-store data collection, event marketing, retail technology, and retail analytics. [15]
On August 6, 2013, Crossmark agreed to buy Marketing Werks. The Marketing Werks deal will contribute to its total annual revenue of nearly $1 billion. [10] [16]Based in Chicago, Marketing Werks provides experiential marketing campaigns for companies in several consumer industries.
In November 2013, Crossmark acquired the assets of PromoWorks. [17]
In 2010 [18] and 2011, [19] InformationWeek ranked Crossmark on its list of most-innovative users of business technology.