Thursday, April 7, 2011

BBDO Event Recap


BBDO
4/06/11

Background

- BBDO has 287 offices in 79 countries

- It stands for Batton, Barton, Dustine & Osborn

- BBDO is the most awarded agency network in the world since 2007

- The ad agency in Mad Men is inspired by BBDO

- Examples of clients: Starbucks, HBO, The Economist, Mars, Campbell, Bank of America


HBO Case Study

- Constructed outdoor film campaign, of a cube. During the night each side of the cube shows a different angle of the film. Viewers would have to see the film from 4 angles to understand the story properly. These shots were filmed simultaneously.

- The cube directs people to the online website which has more film clips and material. When people watched all the clips the viewer is then rewarded with a final payoff film.

- Good example of non-linear interactive campaign


True Blood Case Study (Original HBO Show)

- The first season of True Blood was a huge success for HBO, the challenge HBO gave BBDO is help sell True Blood Season 2 on DVD or Blu-ray. This is an increasingly hard task as most people no longer feel the need to purchase physical copies of their favorite TV shows. They tackled this by suggesting that watching True Blood Season 2 marathon experience will transform the viewer.

- Created TV, print, flash banners, and rich-media banners (these were interactive so people can type in their own experiences and their own confessions on how watching True Blood ‘transformed’ them)

- Blu-ray live feed technology, which allows viewers to connect to Facebook. The technology changes the Facebook status picture the more the viewer watches the show. It also detects viewing habits and changes Facebook status accordingly.

- 4 million impressions, DVD and Blu-ray sales soared and surpassed performance of season 1 sales

- Broke records for HBO box sales, until the Pacific was released.


Q&A

What is it like working for such a big agency?

- Around 500 people in the New York office

- Difference depends more on the clients rather than size. The accounts vary a lot, some have a lot of personnel and some have well laid-out hierarchy structure e.g. Bank of America

- It does not feel so big because the company culture is quite loose and the company has bars.

What did you do before BBDO that makes you qualified for the job?

- Wasn’t the most qualified, she started in a small media company and worked a lot on spreadsheets

- She left and wanted to go into digital because it is such a flourishing area.

- More about how you sell yourself e.g. learns fast, digital savy and cannot be afraid working in big agencies like this.

How do you convince clients who do not revolve around digital to use digital marketing?

- Even if brand does not really revolve around digital, at the end of the day it is about getting the word out. Digital is the more prolific way of doing this. It no longer makes sense to just look at the traditional methods.

Do you feel people with an undergraduate business degree are more confined; is it harder getting into creative and making an impact on creative work?

- A lot of different people with different backgrounds add to the diversity of BBDO.

- People from business schools tend to be more involved in strategy and media.

- However, no matter which background you come from you will always have an impact on creative work.

How did you land the HBO accounts? Do you have a choice?

- There are always openings every year when people move up, you have to interview for them.

- Depends ultimately on your fit with the needs of the client, so you do not have a choice.

What is the most difficult part of your job?

- Hierarchy of the organization. BBDO is more vertical than the company she came from, which is more horizontal. So decisions sometimes take a long time to get made. It is a challenge making sure things go where they need to go.

- Client time. Working at an agency like this can require interaction time with clients outside of standard 9-5. Must always make time for clients, being patient and making sure you make the right decisions. Must also need to be on tap all the time.

Contact Information

Email: Hannah.park@bbdo.com

Telephone: 212 459 5031

2 comments:

  1. @Kyle.. Pretty interesting post! Please keep on posting











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