IDG Communications rebrands as Foundry, positions itself as a martech company

IDG Communications, longtime publisher of Computerworld, MacWorld, PCWorld, TechHive and other titles, will now be known as Foundry. The rebrand signals a pivot to integrated marketing technology services following recent data and technology acquisitions and the company having been acquired last year by investment firm Blackstone.

Focusing on its tech. Through the company’s history of providing business coverage, Foundry has amassed a database of 200 million individuals and global behavioral insights. With Foundry’s publishing properties remaining intact, the company adds four main marketing pillars to its stack of offerings for clients – ABM, marketing intelligence solutions, a B2B sales and marketing data intent platform, and measurement and analytics.

Read next: IDG Communications acquires Selling Simplified

“We set out to deliver on a strategy that re-invents our business for a new era in technology marketing where data and [marketing technology] are engineered to work seamlessly together, powered by our global ecosystem of editorial brands,” said President Kumaran Ramanathan, in a company release.

Foundry’s new brand strategy and visual identity were created in-house and in collaboration with UK-based consultant Emma Booty.

Why we care. Foundry made four technology acquisitions in the last 18 months, all to unlock the growth potential in the data it amassed as a publisher. This rebrand and transformation shows that data truly is the foundation of marketing success. That goes for advertisers that tap into this resource as a Foundry client, or for standalone brands that leverage their customer data to grow advertising and marketing services of their own. We’ve seen the latter happen increasingly in the big box retail space, with Best Buy, Walgreens and The Gap launching their own media shops.

About The Author

Chris Wood draws on over 15 years of reporting experience as a B2B editor and journalist. At DMN, he served as associate editor, offering original analysis on the evolving marketing tech landscape. He has interviewed leaders in tech and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins, to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country’s first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on “innovation theater” at Fintech Inn, in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting in industry trades like Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS, and contributes fiction, criticism and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University, and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.