By its own admission, Digitas is not a traditional promotions agency. However, its customer-relationship management orientation focuses on the long-term, often using its promotions team to drive acquisition and retention.
“We use our promotions to engage customers in an ongoing dialog with our clients, so that it’s not just one touch and out,” says Steve Greifer, senior VP-promotions for Boston-based Digitas.
For example, client Celebrity Cruise Lines was a middle-of-the-pack brand looking for a breakthrough idea to differentiate itself. Among a “slew of changes” it wanted to roll out: a partnership with Cirque du Soleil, with its dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment.
“The relationship with Cirque was key,” says Steven Hancock, senior VP-marketing and sales for Celebrity. “For us, Cirque is really almost a transformation partnership because it effects our entire business.”
A Cirque-branded lounge experience, called The Bar at the Edge of the Earth, became the centerpiece of the partnership, and is featured on Celebrity’s two newest ships.
Dangling tickets to Cirque du Soleil shows and passage on the inaugural cruises, several travel agencies doubled and tripled sales for Celebrity compared to the previous year. Top producers showed increases near 100%, Greifer says. Digitas also coordinated trips to four travel-agent sales meetings and brought Cirque du Soleil acts to surprise the attendees.
“Hopefully, that keeps us front of mind when those travel agents are talking with their customers about booking cruises,” Greifer says.
Consumer promotions targeted Cirque du Soleil audiences in three markets with cruise information and a sweeps awarding passage on the cruise line. Celebrity garnered 13,000 leads, about a 3.5% response rate over a 40- to 65-day promo period, Greifer says.
“The starting point was making sure to hit show attendees who had a proven affinity for Cirque du Soleil entertainment,” he adds. “And we offered them an opportunity to experience Cirque du Soleil in a way that hasn’t been done before.”
In addition to the cruise line, Digitas’ client list includes AOL, AT&T, American Express, Best Buy, Federal Express, General Motors, The Gillette Co., Kitchen Aid, Met Life, IBM, The New York Times, Pfizer and Time Warner Cable.
General Motors, one of its three largest clients, says Digitas is filled with “big thinkers that don’t allow us to be confined to any specific parameter or box,” says Dino Bernacchi, advertising manager for the Pontiac division.
Digitas helped facilitate a recent online promotion supporting Pontiac’s appearance on The Apprentice, in which 1,000 Solstices were sold within 41 minutes of the promotion airing during the show.
“If you do things in a typical, traditional way, even if they’re outstanding, it’s not going to be enough,” Bernacchi says. “[Digitas] finds a way to implement our programs, and make them bigger.”
Digitas, owned by publicly held Digitas Inc., took a leap up the Promo 100 to the No. 19 spot from No. 34 last year, due in part to the $200 million acquisition of interactive marketing strategy and services firm Modem Media last July, which contributed $13 million in revenue, as well as new business.
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