Agency of the Year/Digitas USA
“It has been a fabulous year for us,” says Laura Lang, CEO of Digitas USA. “I tell everyone that I couldn’t have imagined a better outcome.”
She’s talking about seeing her agency and its global parent purchased by Paris-based advertising giant Publicis in one of 2007’s biggest acquisitions. The $1.3 billion deal added interactive talent and tech to the Publicis stable — not to mention a roster of marquee accounts such as American Express, General Motors and IBM.
The strategy seems to have worked pretty well for Publicis. CEO Maurice Levy announced in April that digital revenue was the strongest growth element in the company’s Q1 2008 financial picture, comprising about 18% of income during the quarter. He expects digital sales to make up 20% of his company’s total revenue by the end of the year and 25% by December 2010.
And now Digitas gets to leverage Publicis’ presence internationally. Since being absorbed, the company has created Digitas Global and appointed Alan Rutherford as CEO. Both Rutherford and Lang report to Digitas CEO and chairman David Kenny. The agency last year expanded in the U.K., China, Japan and France.
That kind of round-the-world capability is crucial as marketing becomes a global function for today’s leading brands. “So many of our clients are big international marketers that it makes us very relevant to them,” says Lang. “We’re able to understand how things are operating overseas, get consumer insights and execute on a global scale.”
In the U.S., Lang says, Digitas is integrating well into Publicis’ other marketing properties, including sister agencies Fallon, Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi, and media services providers Starcom MediaVest and Zenith Optimedia. For example, the company is in the process of meshing operations with Burnett and Starcom to form something called The Insight Factory, which will streamline the handling of accounts common to all three firms via a single agency manager.
This will let Burnett and Starcom benefit from the consumer insights Digitas gets from studying user behavior over multiple digital media. “We’re able to understand how people are using different media and different engagement devices, and then translate that into wisdom about the consumer,” Lang says. Digitas learns all this about consumers because it tracks and measures results with the fervor of a direct marketer. That’s appropriate: The agency started life in 1980 as Bronner Slosberg Humphrey, with a response-driven focus, and still holds high regard for DM basics like metrics. In 1995, BSH spun off a subsidiary, the Strategic Interactive Group, to handle campaigns on this wild and wooly new thing called the Internet.
“Direct marketing had accountability, but not mass reach,” says Lang. “The emerging digital space was not disciplined the way DM was, but my God, it had reach. Each one needed the other. So in ’99 we put them together to form Digitas, recognizing that that core DNA of measurement and accountability was going to be immensely important to the evolution of the digital space.”
She adds: “The company today is a reflection of that heritage. Innovative technology and next-gen thinking, but we can’t have a meeting without someone asking, ‘What’s the outcome?’ ”
This has paid off since the acquisition. The agency has won business from the likes of Miller Brewing, Sara Lee and Saturn, although it did lose AT&T Wireless when that client consolidated its outsourced services.
Once you have that consumer knowledge, the Digitas philosophy is to look beyond those insights to the ways a campaign message can be integrated into prospects’ lives most seamlessly, says Digitas Boston’s executive creative director Heath Rudduck.
“We want to deliver a product, service or solution at the point in a consumer’s life where we can be most interwoven into their daily existence,” he adds.
The same holds true in the promotions and experiential campaigns that Digitas conceives. “Traditionally, promotions have focused on a short-term impact with a target audience,” says Steve Greifer, senior vice president for promotions. “Now we’re focused on identifying the customers that are going to move the needle for our clients.”
Finding those influencers and making that connection can mean offering consumers something they truly value. The agency’s promotions vice president, Jackie Stone, points to an online campaign the agency ran for Buick this year: “Tee Off with Tiger.”
Entrants predicted how well Tiger Woods would fare, hole by hole and round by round, for each tournament he entered. The top prognosticator won a round of golf with Woods, who served as the winner’s caddy.
“These golfers are fascinated with how the game is played,” Lang says. “So the conversation around the promotion was how Tiger’s scoring, how he’s playing each hole, what club he’s using and what strategy. We had insight into the consumer, and then we acted to bring that to life with a campaign that starts a broader conversation inside the group.”
Other connection campaigns launched in the last year include the American Express Members Project, which asked cardholders to suggest worthy social projects. It pledged a $1 donation for every member who voted for the idea (to a $5 million limit). An online social network for breast cancer survivors under the Astra-Zeneca brand is another campaign.
So what do you concern yourself with when you’re a digital star and generating both business and ideas? Talent development.
“We’re in a really fortunate position right now because we’re attracting fabulous people as an industry leader,” Lang says.
TOP EXECUTIVES: Laura Lang, CEO Digitas U.S.; Alan Rutherford, CEO Digitas Global; David Kenny, chairman and CEO, Digitas
2007 U.S. NET REVENUE: $390 million (estimated)
KEY CLIENTS: Procter & Gamble, American Express, General Motors, Home Depot, InterContinental Hotels Group
HEADQUARTERS: Boston
