Carmel-based JDA Worldwide communications firm expands

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For Brad Benbow, it was time for JDA Worldwide, his Carmel-based advertising and communications agency, to expand its services.

So, a new brand and firm called Prolific was launched Dec. 3 and became the parent company of JDA Worldwide. The new firm provides strategic growth planning and management consulting services.

CIC DOUGH 1231 Prolific
Benbow

Benbow, who lives in Carmel and Traverse City, Mich., will serve as CEO of both companies. JDA Worldwide has an office in Traverse City.

Benbow said JDA Worldwide has been a hybrid between an advertising agency and management consultancy.

“We wanted to emerge more aggressively into the things outside a typical ad agency brand proposition. We wanted to make sure we had the proper structure to do that more easily,” Benbow said. “You think about our emergence into growth capital as an example. Typically, ad agencies do not invest into their clients. We certainly do and intend to do more so.”

Benbow said services such as data analytics, growth capital, distribution systems, mergers and acquisitions are outside the boundaries of most communications agencies.

“Prolific is a management consultancy that concentrates on clients that want exponential growth,” Benbow said. “We found we can certainly scale the strategic growth planning work because there is a large number of companies that have this appetite across the country. We have nine locations to be able to do that.”

In addition to the Carmel headquarters and Traverse City, there are offices in Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Colorado Springs, Colo., St. Simons Island, Ga., Columbia, S.C. and Charleston, S.C.

“If teed up correctly, all our clients could be inherently prolific, which is an embodied notion of perpetual exponential growth that is sustainable,” Benbow said. “The greatest evidence of this is that large management consultancies such as Accenture, Deloitte and McKinsey have been busy buying ad agencies. We are an opposite version of that and we’re opposite with a specialty that we are bona fide revenue experts.”

Benbow co-founded JDA Worldwide in 2003.

“The biggest leap in the business has been the last five years,” Benbow said.

Dave Neff has been named chief revenue officer for Prolific. He most recently served as president and CEO of Edge Mentoring.

“Dave is a real Indianapolis leader and we’re excited about partnering up,” Benbow said. “He’s a longtime friend to JDA. He’s a rock star.”

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