A visual communications and marketing technology company in Louisville just made a major acquisition.

Vivid Impact Co. LLC recently bought another local firm, Impressions Inc., in a strategic move to increase its manufacturing capacity. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In an interview last week, President Sam Campitella told me Vivid Impact has been growing exponentially even prior to the transaction.

When Campitella joined the company in 2017 from Cintas Corp., Vivid Impact was”stuck” at $17 million in revenue, operating primarily as a commercial printer. The company’s founder, Greg Buchheit, was looking to hire a “selling” president, Campitella said, one that could lead the transition of Vivid Impact into a tech-centered organization.

Campitella stepped into the president role in October 2021. Other C-suite leaders include JC Wilkinson, executive vice president and chief operating officer, and Brandon Boyers, executive vice president and chief manufacturing officer.

Our goal, as a company, was to build our business around the principles of automation, lean manufacturing and lead with marketing and technology,” Campitella said. “For the last three years, our business has experienced double-digit growth year-over-year, and I think that’s important because that is all the result of new business.

The company makes visual displays that you might find in retail, health care or other locations. Much of that new business has been concentrated in the verticals of convenience and retail, health care, and wine and spirits, he continued, which has increased revenues from $20 million in 2020 to $35 million in 2023. Vivid Impact is projecting revenue of $60 million in 2024, following the Impressions deal.
And to keep up with that growth, Campitella said the company still needs more space.

Prior to the acquisition, Vivid Impact had two standalone locations in Louisville, a 90,000-square-foot facility at 10116 Bunsen Way and a 30,000-square-foot facility on Plantside Drive. Impressions added a 30,000-square-foot facility at 2500 Constant Comment Place, about 30 employees and an eight-color perfecting press.

Vivid Impact now has about 250 employees in total.

The company is expanding outside of the metro area, too, with plans to open a 50,000-to 60,000-square-foot facility in Phoenix. Campitella said Vivid Impact has a lot of customers in the Pacific Northwest, and it wanted to be more competitive with freight times while also cutting down on emissions.

“We believe there is so much upside and opportunity as we create a physical location out on the West Coast,” he said, noting the company will hire about 25 employees in Phoenix, ranging from manufacturing and fulfillment to sales.

Additionally, Vivid Impact is establishing a sales office in Dallas, after noticing a spike inconvenience and retail opportunities there. It plans to hire two sales consultants and two project managers to grow the company’s presence in the Texas market.
Those geographical expansions alone would be enough to keep any company busy, butVivid Impact is taking it one step further by building up its technology platforms. It’sgrowing its AI, technology and data-science services with the launch of its patent-pending machine learning platform, PrecisionPOP iQ.

PrecisionPOP is a store-profiling software used to automate the ordering of monthly promotional kits for the 6,500 convenience stores Vivid Impact serves. Campitella said companies, like some of its largest clients, Circle K and Thornton’s, can use the technology to take the human error out of the ordering process for multiple storefronts across different states.

Vivid Impact invested “heavily” into those technology platforms last year, he added.

“I think that’s important … Where you put your money is typically where your focus is,so we’ve been very intentional about purchasing digital equipment to boost automation and efficiencies and double down within technology,” Campitella said.

And while Impressions was Vivid Impact’s first acquisition in the last decade, it certainly won’t be its last, Campitella said, as the company aims to be a one-stop-shop for its clients, from design to order fulfillment.

“We’re consistently looking for new opportunities to provide our customers value-added services to support their marketing initiatives,” he said. “Most of our acquisitions in the future are going to be bolstered around agency capabilities and technology.”

PrecisionPOP is a store-profiling software used to automate the ordering of monthly promotional kits for the 6,500 convenience stores Vivid Impact serves. Campitella said companies, like some of its largest clients, Circle K and Thornton’s, can use the technology to take the human error out of the ordering process for multiple storefronts across different states.

Vivid Impact invested “heavily” into those technology platforms last year, he added.

“I think that’s important … Where you put your money is typically where your focus is, so we’ve been very intentional about purchasing digital equipment to boost automation and efficiencies and double down within technology,” Campitella said.

And while Impressions was Vivid Impact’s first acquisition in the last decade, it certainly won’t be its last, Campitella said, as the company aims to be a one-stop-shop for its clients, from design to order fulfillment.

“We’re consistently looking for new opportunities to provide our customers value-added services to support their marketing initiatives,” he said. “Most of our acquisitions in the future are going to be bolstered around agency capabilities and technology.”