plus 4, Shops Next in Line for Ad Age's Agency A-List - Advertising Age |
- Shops Next in Line for Ad Age's Agency A-List - Advertising Age
- Donation of Spears’ dress OK for Haiti relief - Morning Journal
- Creativity Agency of the Year: Mother - Advertising Age
- Appalachian Reduces Season Pass Rates; Wins Terrain Park Award - OnTheSnow.com
- Epic dance battle ensues at the FAC - Daily Collegian
| Shops Next in Line for Ad Age's Agency A-List - Advertising Age Posted: 24 Jan 2010 08:51 PM PST 10 on Their Way to the Top of Our RankingsMother, New York, the U.S. hub of London-based independent shop, has long been known for its quirky work for brands such as Johnson & Johnson's K-Y lubricant and a burgeoning line of agency-made goods such as candles, books and flasks. But last year marked a turning point for the agency, one in which Mother focused less on vanity projects and instead churned out impressive, varied work for clients (for more on this, read Creativity's Agency of the Year story). For New Balance it was launching a new line of lifestyle shoes; for Dell it was creating a laptop design studio; and for Target a soaring Times Square billboard that later was fashioned into handbags. The shop also stole business from big players, like Cadbury's Sour Patch kids brand from JWT and expanded its events offering, helping plan concerts for Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. Losing a car account is one of the most-devastating things that can happen to an agency. But to quickly replace it with a far sexier car brand is a special feat—and exactly what Deutsch's Los Angeles office pulled off in 2009 when it brought home the $200 million Volkswagen of America account, succeeding Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Deutsch was left open in the category after troubled General Motors nixed its Saturn brand. VW's top marketer, Tim Ellis, invited the shop into its pitch, during which Deutsch presented the carmaker with "a platform that we felt was head and shoulders above the other competitors," Mr. Ellis has said. We'll soon find out; Deutsch's debut work for VW breaks during the Super Bowl next month. Also in 2009, mobile phone maker HTC tapped Deutsch as its first consumer agency and the resulting work helped put the brand on the map. Deutsch, LA, was spared from the tumult that rocked Deutsch's New York office when Interpublic merged Deutsch with Lowe, making it the North American hub of the Lowe & Partners network. Like many agencies, Resource Interactive had a difficult 2008. But it rebounded with a vengeance, turning 2009 into what Nancy Kramer and Kelley Mooney -- the shop's founder-CEO and chief experience officer, respectively -- rank the best in the agency's 28-year history. The Columbus, Ohio-based digital shop raked in $41 million in revenue last year, up from $36 million in 2008, according to Ad Age's DataCenter. More than a quarter of '09 revenues came from new clients, but it grew organically too, nearly doubling business from existing client Coca-Cola and P&G brands Clairol and Gillette Venus. Resource's growth has been aided by its prowess in the consumer-packaged goods sector, and those companies' new-found commitment to digital marketing. The agency's CPG clients, which also include Scotts-Miracle Gro, Bush's Baked Beans and Lean Cuisine, drove the agency's roughly 30% growth in headcount this year -- and its opening of a Cincinnati outpost to service P&G. Toronto-based Juniper Park works with Red Cross, Eos skin-care products and the Chicago Tribune, and is one of too-few shops led by a woman -- Jill Nykoliation, one of Ad Age's 2009 Women to Watch. But perhaps most watched are Juniper Park's stellar campaigns for Frito-Lay. To combat the perception of Lay's potato chips as over-processed, the offshoot of Omnicom's BBDO Worldwide created a campaign underscoring that the product is made from just three ingredients: potatoes, sunflower oil and salt, with the tagline "Happiness is simple." Another effort for Frito combined female-targeted brands such as Flat Earth, Baked Lays, Smart Food and 100-Calorie Packs in one platform promoted by creating content. "Only in a Woman's World" was a web-based comedy series following the rituals of everyday life. According to Juniper Park, there have been over 10 million views of the webisodes, and more than 5,400 subscribed to follow the campaign on Twitter. Chicago-based Cramer-Krasselt finds itself on our "Next in Line" list for the third-straight year. In 2009, C-K added Zicam, Edward Jones, Crocs, Avodart and Direct General to its stable of brands. Its steady new-business performance helped the independent agency eek out a low-single-digit revenue gain amid a brutal business climate. C-K got results for its clients, too, making Porsche's Panamera the company's most successful new-model launch ever despite a dreadful environment for luxury-car marketers. It did so thanks in part to a heavily targeted, mostly digital effort that artfully presented the first four-door sports-car Porsche as a logical evolution of the performance automaker's brand.So why is C-K still waiting in line rather than inching toward the head of it? That's largely due to trouble on its signature account: Crown Imports' Corona Extra brand. After 16 years of consecutive growth, Corona sales have sputtered for the past three. Crown left Corona Extra with C-K, but pulled media and creative chores on Corona Light. Grupo Gallegos boosted billings by 30% in 2009 as the independent Hispanic shop's clients Comcast, Target, California Milk Processor Board and Foster Farm increased their market share -- and spending -- with Latino consumers. Always one of the Hispanic market's most creative and visionary thinkers, Los Angeles-based Grupo came up with new insights that helped clients grow in a tough year. For Comcast, Grupo tapped into Hispanics' professed love of technology. For Foster Farms, Grupo revealed the dirty secret that cheaper supermarket brands plump their chickens with water and salt, making premium-price Foster Farms chickens the better buy. In 2009, R/GA continued its trajectory from a digital boutique into a full-service agency with digital at the core. It was appointed digital agency of record for mega-retailer Walmart and for fast feeder Taco Bell. It also picked up global digital duties for MasterCard, which it will service via new offices in Sao Paulo and Singapore in 2010. There was one dark cloud, though, an app it created for PepsiCo's Amp that promoted picking up chicks in bars. Riddled with female stereotypes, it offended many-a-lady on the interweb. The Interpublic agency closed out 2009 on a positive note by scoring the creative -- not just digital -- account for Ameriprise from Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi. At the start of 2009, Farfar's parent, Aegis Group's Isobar, won Nokia's global digital advertising accounts in partnership with Interpublic's R/GA. Farfar had already been working with Nokia in Sweden for several years and was seen as a key factor in the win. The resulting "Good Things" campaign, promoting Nokia's Ovi navigation service, was manifested in central London with the creation of a 50-meter tall interactive signpost. Run by a group of laid-back Swedes who proudly stick to a 40-hour working week, the shop is known worldwide for creating fun, entertaining ideas that marry humanity and humor with technology, and don't need bought media to be seen. In 2009, while doing inventive work for its clients, MediaVest racked up nearly $1.5 billion in new business, rivaling the tallies of other heavyweight agencies and making it the largest shop in the Starcom MediaVest operation, based on revenues. MediaVest's wins included Bristol-Myers Squibb, Mars-Wrigley's consolidated account and THQ Gaming. The THQ win filled the void left by the agency's only significant loss, Activision. It also won the $250 million consolidated Comcast business. And with Comcast's purchase of NBC, MediaVest's roster now includes another market segment leader to go along with the likes of Coke, Kraft, Walmart and Starbucks. In terms of organic growth, the agency also added assignments for Coca-Cola's Glaceau brand, CapitalOne Digital and Heineken Digital. Take a look at Richards Group's creative reel and it's a far cry from the gorgeous work produced by the Wieden & Kennedys and Goodby Silverstein & Partners of the adworld. The Dallas-based agency has little -- other than prized Effies awarded for effective campaigns -- to display in its trophy cases. But in 2009, the largest independent agency in America had much to brag about. Despite clients' shrinking marketing budgets, it managed to grow revenues by a couple percent to $170 million. It won a dozen new accounts, including Georgia Power, the Yachts of Seabourn and, most notably, the shop was named to Chrysler's new roster of creative agencies to handle work for the Dodge Ram truck brand. Richards' philosophy is that no account is considered too small, and the majority of its clients are under $2 million in billings.
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| Donation of Spears’ dress OK for Haiti relief - Morning Journal Posted: 24 Jan 2010 09:48 PM PST Britney Spears arrives at the Teen Choice Awards in Universal City, Calif. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears is lending a hand, or rather a dress, to help out Haiti. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Creativity Agency of the Year: Mother - Advertising Age Posted: 24 Jan 2010 08:58 PM PST Shop Has Been Responsible for Everything From Rock Concerts to Its Own Hot-Dog Businesscustom_html>NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- "When we were starting out, we said, 'We want to build the most interesting company in the whole damn world," said Mother, New York, co-founder and co-Chief Creative Officer Paul Malmstrom. "Well, now we think it's starting to look and feel really interesting." Agreed. In the past year, Mother expanded the already broad range of work coming out of its Bond Street headquarters, it added new and interesting clients while maintaining relationships with the big brands that have been attracted to the shop's nimble nature and idea-driven approach, and it added some interesting talent, including one bona fide digital heavyweight. During its six-plus years in business, Mother has done the heavy lifting required to earn the description "media-agnostic, entrepreneurial creative shop," and now the 75-person agency is starting to capitalize on a talent infrastructure and culture that seem right for what will surely be more interesting times ahead. The agency has, from the start, created one of the industry's most-diverse bodies of work, with its output ranging from rock concerts and conferences to laptop designs and hot dogs. In that way, Mother, New York, is a true heir to its own progenitor, Mother, London, an agency that's been a marvel of consistent creative heterogeneity (and quality) in its 14 years of life. Spirit lives on Mother, New York, has embodied the spirit and M.O. of the original -- no middle (i.e. account) people, and an open, people-centric operating style -- but there was never any need to enforce family values. "If anything, they reintroduced us to many of [those values]," said Mother, London, co-founder and co-Creative Director Robert Saville. "The Mother way is painfully simple. It is about empowering people to be the very best they can be for the benefit of all of us. The New York partners believed this more strongly than anyone." Building a New York agency based on these principles took some time, but the partners believe that a certain critical mass was achieved last year. "In many ways we're building a collective here," said Mr. Malmstrom. "It takes a while to get used to that way of working. It seems that now things are really starting to happen, organically, where all the disciplines are working together in really awesome ways." The collective clicking manifested itself in some interesting work in 2009. New products Through its relationship with Dell, Mother created the Dell Design Studio, which offers consumers hundreds of casing-design choices for Dell laptops, including patterns created by Mother designers and works from up-and-coming artists. The agency has also created TV and print work in which Dell's brightly colored laptops appear as candy-coated treats. To help New Balance sell a limited-edition shoe called 574 Clips, the agency created 480 unique web videos -- one for each pair of shoes made. Polaroid pictures capturing moments from the films were included in the shoes' boxes with a dedicated URL so owners could claim and share their clips. A new New Balance campaign will launch in February. Once again, the agency spearheaded the Virgin Music Festival for client Virgin Mobile, with this year's fest free to attend in light of 2009's subdued economic vibe. The partnership with Virgin has resulted in some of the agency's other more unexpected duties -- like working on the music tours of Britney Spears and Lady Gaga, for which the shop develops and produces front of house experience, fan contests and giveaways and special events. Another client partnership saw Mother expand its own structure with the addition of a production unit. Mother had worked for about a year with NBC Local Media on a range of projects. The agency was originally recruited to do communications around the relaunch of NBC Local's websites but then expanded the scope of the project, "creating properties and platforms that acted as content as well as traffic drivers," Mr. Deitchman said. The agency created things such as the Golden Local, a multiplatform initiative that engaged local residents in online debates about the city's best restaurants, services, stores and sights. Last spring, the program evolved into the Locals Only campaign, which saw Mother organizing big-ticket cultural events exclusively for locals, i.e. those who logged onto NBC Local sites and proved their neighborhood knowledge by answering a series of questions. 'Mass roots' Mother has helped client Johnson & Johnson give its K-Y brand a new lease on life, this year creating a campaign for K-Y Intense, advertising a product "proven to intensify female satisfaction" to mainstream America. In addition to handling other corporate projects for J&J, the agency also added AOR responsibilities for its Bengay brand. It also picked up duties on Cadbury's Sour Patch candy, created a public-art spectacle -- soon to be a documentary -- for Stella Artois, worked on print and TV for CBS College Sports, and much more. Mother is known for developing its own creative initiatives as well. Under its Mother Ventures banner, the shop famously created and (in 2008) sold a hot-dog business, Dogmatic, which earned critical success among New Yorkers last year. The agency will unveil its next major entrepreneurial effort in 2010. It was a good year for Mother in what has been a terrible year for advertising, to say the least. "Something happened last year with us," said Mr. Karlsson. "Internally and in terms of the kinds of work we started to do. For the last few years, we've built tools, basically, for all our people here. Whether that was in production or graphic design, or brand experience, or whatever. Now people are all really working together, and enjoying working together." Generalists Now, said Mr. Deitchman, when a marketing opportunity presents itself "it's about finding where the center of gravity of that idea is. Is it more design led, more content-based? Now we have the diversity of people as well as the culture of collaboration to find the right center of gravity and work behind whoever we think is the leader for that initiative. It's taken time to get the critical mass of people, the right tools, the right culture." The agency's approach to client work is less about creating campaigns and more about programming brands, said Mr. Karlsson. "The conversation that brands have with people is, first, an ongoing conversation. But you also can't keep having the same conversation the same way year after year. You have to evolve the story." Mr. Karlsson and Mr. Malmstrom are nearing their 20th anniversary as a team. The pair started out at Paradiset, Stockholm, moved to Fallon, Minneapolis, in 1996 and worked for a time out of Fallon, New York, before getting the call to launch Mother. "We've done a lot of campaigns, and it's been rewarding. But a number of years ago we thought we wanted to be a part of a business, to change the way the company we work for behaves. We like to think we've brought our creative thinking into our business." The agency's account-people-less structure, Mr. Karlsson said, empowers creatives, who end up getting more involved in clients' businesses. "[Account management] is a discipline that everyone in that group shares," he said. "It's one little thing but it forces everyone, including creatives, to not just be in their own world." And along with dedicated account managers, Mother eschews a top-down management style. "We think that no one else should represent anyone else's point of view. If you have a question about something that was written you talk to the person who wrote it. That engages the people who work on an account." People "When you're growing a company it's a combination of vision -- where you think the business is going -- plus total opportunism, and, this may be the most important part, people. ... We try and find people who are aligned philosophically but have different passions. It's not, 'Oh we have a client, so let's start a company in China.' It's, 'This person would be a wonderful addition to this family.'" One of those people who the partners thought might be wonderful to have on board was Nicke Bergstrom, a co-founder of Sweden's FarFar, considered by many to be one of the best digital agencies anywhere. That addition will doubtless have a huge impact on the agency's digital discipline and will likely put the agency in a wider competitive set in the coming years. With its culture forming a thick gel, primary among the agency's goals now is just making every bit of the work better. "There are some things that are fantastic and some things that can be better," said Mr. Malmstrom. "It's a long journey, that's fine. We're proud of where we are but we're really just starting."
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| Appalachian Reduces Season Pass Rates; Wins Terrain Park Award - OnTheSnow.com Posted: 24 Jan 2010 08:58 PM PST Appalachian Mountain has lowered its season pass prices 20 percent through Jan. 31. Wait until Feb. 1 to 14 and the rates drop 30 percent. An individual adult season pass that was $465 now costs $372 and will drop to $326 the first two weeks in February. Student passes previously costing $405 now are sold for $324 and will fall below $300 to $284 Feb. 1. Prices for junior, senior, and military dropped from $370 to $296 and will be reduced to $259 Feb. 1. A night-only season pass dropped from $280 to $224 and will sink to $196 Feb. 1. Group season pass rates also have been lowered. Appalachian Mountain was cited for its terrain park, winning a "Best of the Outdoors" award from Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine. The publication described the facility as "two massive terrain parks with creative features, more boxes than FedEx, more rails than Amtrak, and bigger hits than Britney Spears. That's why this small mountain has become ground zero for park culture in the Southeast." Appalachian has added a Burton Progression Park this season for those who need work on the fundamentals first. Blue Ridge Outdoors' terrain park runners up were The Spot at Seven Springs, PA and Pro Park at Wisp Resort, Md. More information. Or call 828-295-7828 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Epic dance battle ensues at the FAC - Daily Collegian Posted: 24 Jan 2010 09:05 PM PST This weekend marked what some would call the official start to the semester, with events sponsored by the University Programming Council (UPC). Slideshow: UMass' Best Dance Crew Thursday night's kick-off event, "UMass' Best Dance Crew," brought crowds that packed every corner of the Fine Arts Center, which holds approximately 19,000 students. According to Wing Lau, a representative from UPC, students began to line up for the event at 6:30 p.m., over an hour before it was set to begin. Once the doors were opened, squeals and shrieks could be heard from the herd of students trying to rush to their seats. Once inside the auditorium, students were able to appreciate the on-stage disc jockey spinning live hip-hop, and most were seen dancing in their seats before the show began. After a delayed start of about 10 minutes, it seemed that the audience was growing increasingly anxious to see the upcoming performances. First onto the stage were UPC members Charles Flowers and Josh Dodds, who were forced to fight with the DJ's volume before getting the attention of the crowd. After making a point to mention the table set up in the FAC lobby collecting donations for the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti, Flowers and Dodds introduced the four upcoming student dance groups, as well as the special guests of the evening, MTV's "America's Best Dance Crew's" first-season finalists, Kaba Modern. The first dance group to hit the stage was made up of five girls clad in fitted white T-shirts and black spandex shorts or pants. The most impressive talent of this group, who call themselves Straight Hip Hop, was the amount of gymnastics incorporated into their three-song mix of music, though the crowd seemed more excited by the girls' shaking hips. While Straight Hip Hop certainly brought strong moves and attitude to the competition, they were not invited back for the second round of dancing later on in the evening. Charles and Dodds came out again to give an introduction of the next performing group, Insanely Prestigious, calling them "award winning." The audience soon realized that these six girls and one male made up a step team, who successfully stomped their way into the second round. Each performer's moves were well synchronized with the other members of the team, some even managing to step and keep the beat while sitting down on the stage. They were able to rhyme and chant throughout their short performance. The third group of the night was the all-female Dynamic Motion Dance Team, who bounded onto the stage in matching DMDT tank tops and black spandex pants. Their performance consisted of a slower selection of music, and their movements resembled more of a jazz and lyrical stream than the previous two sets. While the girls impressed the audience members with their show-quality leaps and flexibility, the Dynamic Motion Dance Team failed to secure a spot in the finals. In an effort to keep the crowd's enthusiasm, Charles and Dodds once again hit the stage, this time with free T-shirts to distribute to the screaming swarm of students in the FAC. In an effort to keep the evening moving along smoothly, the boys quickly brought out the final student dance group, Salsa Fusion. Seven girls in different colored hooded sweatshirts immediately came onto the stage, beginning their dance routine with movements to match the sounds of a car engine revving up at the start of their mix of songs. Their movements were synchronized, and seemed almost interpretive in nature. After the first half of their routine, four male dancers ran onto stage in silver vests, and the girls exited for a costume change. When they returned, the set seemed transformed into a Bollywood feel, both in dance style and apparel, which was complete with small bells on the sides of the girls' wide-legged pants. Their broad steps and precise arm movements rose loud cheers from the crowd, ultimately leading the group into the final round. Finally, the MCs rewarded the audience with what they had been anxiously awaiting all night. The six members of the California-based dance group Kaba Modern were welcomed to the stage with deafening cheers. Their set began with The Whispers' Rock Steady, a slower selection so that they could showcase their precise movements, which varied from small arm pumps to an entire body roll. While the judges collaborated to tally their results, Charles and Dodds called upon the audience members to come up to the stage for an impromptu dance-off, where more free T-shorts were distributed. This happened at various points throughout the night, and it seemed as if the boys were ill-prepared for the situation, as some of the dancing would have made pole dancers squirm. The second round of dancing began with three of the male members of Salsa Fusion, who pumped their bodies up from the floor in time with the sound of heartbeat. The rest of the routine consisted of broad hip movements and constant jumping from all of the members of the group, which seemed to impress the student audience. Insanely Prestigious showed that they had a singer amongst them, who introduced the group's next routine with her vocals as well as her dance moves. Their performance involved lifting one member in the air as she continued to keep in time with the rest of the step team. After another audience dance-off which brought break dancers and a few 'worms' onto the stage, the two final dance crews held a head-to-head competition, and Salsa Fusion came out with their own step dance routine in an attempt to show up the talent of Insanely Prestigious. Once again, Kaba Modern graced the audience with their talents in an encore performance with movements that were as strong and as smooth as if they were performed by Michael Jackson, smiling all the while and making their actions seem as easy as walking down the street. One Kaba Modern member broke into the robot with ease, which brought shrieks from the crowd, amongst many calls of, "I love you!" and various marriage proposals. As a surprise feature, Arnel Calvario, Kaba Modern's founder and manager, came out onto the stage to start of a round of solos for each group member. When asked later about this section of the night, the group members revealed that they each still become nervous when performing improvisational dance moves, as they did during their solo sets. After some additional announcements made by UPC members regarding upcoming UPC events, such as UMass' Last Comic Standing and Battle of the Bands, two trophies were awarded to the top two finalists in UMass' Best Dance Crew, Insanely Prestigious took second place, as Salsa Fusion was crowned the winner. Both groups got to share the stage with Kaba Modern, and Calvario once again mentioned the great need for financial support for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. At this point, students were standing in clumps on the sides of the stage to get a closer look at the guest performers. According to Calvario, performing in shows at universities, such as UMass brings the Kaba Modern crew back to their roots, as they started dancing together in college. As for their stint on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew, "it just happened," said Calvario in an interview after the show. "It is a blessing to keep doing what you do." The Jan. 21 event was also special to the six dancers because it was the first time they had been together onstage since one member had spent time as a back-up dancer for Britney Spears' Circus tour. Calvario stressed that it is most important for younger dancers and developing groups to "always keep an open mind for different styles" and that the essence of dancing is through the connection to music. Elyse Horowitz can be reached at ebhorowi@student.umass.edu. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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