AlloyASL, Student Marketing Group Merger Creates ASL Marketing

Andrew-Belth-ATrying to corner the market on youth-focused direct-response services, AlloyASL Marketing has agreed to acquire rival services provider Student Marketing Group.

A joint venture between Alloy, Inc. and Havas Worldwide, AlloyASL plans to merge with Student Marketing Group, and, in the process, change its name to ASL Marketing.

“They were competition,” Andrew Belth, president of ASL Marketing, said of Student Marketing Group on Monday. 

In a similar deal last May, ASL Marketing -- then Alloy Direct Marketing -- merged with youth-marketing data provider American Student List.

Per this latest acquisition, ASL Marketing will gain key Student Marketing Group assets, including email and direct mailing lists of high school and college students -- as well as young adults -- around the nation.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but, back in 2005, education finance firm Nelnet acquired Student Marketing Group and National Honor Roll for a reported sale price of $31 million and $51 million.

Student Marketing Group’s past transactions, however, had no bearing on its latest sale, Belth insisted on Monday.

Also old news -- for ASL Marketing, at least -- were several deceptive-trade-practice claims that Student Marketing Group settled with the Federal Trade Commission. “Those issues have long since been resolved,” Belth said on Monday.

In 2003, the FTC alleged that Student Marketing Group used deceptive practices in the collection of student information, because it failed to disclose that the information would be used to market noneducational products and services.

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