Salem Printing Buys Direct Marketer Advanced Direct

WINSTON-SALEM, NC—Salem Printing, one of the largest commercial, packaging and flexographic printers in the Southeast, has acquired Advanced Direct Inc. (ADI), a full-service direct marketing company based in Greensboro, NC.

The two companies have worked together as business partners for years, with Salem looking to ADI as a vendor for direct mail, tracking and data mining services. Both companies are privately owned.

"We are two strong, successful companies that have come together to become even stronger," said Phil Kelley Jr., president and CEO of Salem Printing. "Over the past decade, as the number of printing organizations declined by 40 percent, Salem Printing grew more than 400 percent.

"Together with ADI, we become one of the 200 largest packaging, print, mail and direct marketing companies in the nation, and one of the 15 largest in the Southeast," Kelley continued.

ADI, a 23-year-old firm, will operate in its current location as a division of Salem Printing. ADI also has a sales office in Atlanta. It has 42 employees in the two locations. Salem has 83 employees.

Both companies cater to specialty retailers, financial institutions, business-to-business marketers, agencies, display and marketing organizations, and not-for-profit organizations. They have embraced evolving technologies such as social media, to better integrate clients' printed communications with other forms of message delivery.