It was confirmed today at 12 noon that Caroo Media, the online division of Tarsus Group plc, has acquired a stake in Events Review Ltd, the owners of this website. The new partnership will significantly increase EVENTS:review’s penetration into the global marketing and events community, while growing Caroo’s online offering.

From November, Caroo will extend the EVENTS:review content via email alert to over 80,000 marketers and event organisers, who have opted into receiving content from the Caroo family of products. In addition, the video and text-based news from EVENTS:review will also be accessible from all the Caroo home pages in the sector, collectively attracting over 150,000 unique visitors per calendar month. The online division of Tarsus Group plc operates in five key markets, including the UK, USA, France, Germany and Australia. Its web products range across four main areas: events, venues, giftware and online recruitment.

The news comes hot on the heels of Google snapping up YouTube, and is likely to prompt fresh concern among broadcasters and publishers already alarmed at the growth of online video sites, which is coinciding with a decline in TV audience levels, and TV, press and magazine advertising revenues.

The move also underlines the exciting, innovative and effective platform that EVENTS:review has built in just over six months, using succinct, highly produced online video reports of around four to seven minutes long, to cover events, interviews with corporate marketing and communications heads, experiential campaigns and research. The effectiveness of this type of content delivery was hailed as the future of media by Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search and user experience, during her speech at this year’s Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Karen Taylor
Who also joins the board of ER as a result of the deal.

"This is an excellent opportunity for us to deliver video-rich content over all of our platforms to our international customer base," explains Karen Taylor, managing director of Caroo Media, who also joins the board of EVENTS:review as a result of the deal.

"Caroo Media specialises in delivering market knowledge over the web to an expanding global business audience of marketers via directories and search engines. Our websites provide a quick and easy way for marketing professionals to source products, news and suppliers both nationally and internationally. We continue to expand our product portfolio and this partnership is an exciting and innovative development for our fast-growing online division."

Meanwhile, James Latham, founder of EVENTS:review, said: "The addition of our content brings a whole new experience to marketing professionals accessing the UK and international Caroo sites. We are firmly in the business of communicating the value of live and experiential communications via web TV and other forms of digital content to marketing and events communities.

"Together, the Caroo and EVENTS:review teams have developed an outstanding commercial portfolio of opportunities which will enable our customers to communicate the power of their events, venues, services and agencies to individuals or organisations. We live in an era when the benefits of live and digital communications are fast superceding the use of mass broadcast within the marketing mix. With the Caroo partnership, we can now reach the most relevant marketing and event sectors in both the UK and the US, and we will continue to expand our international offering with further announcements later this year."