Volvo Construction Equipment North America named Arc Marketing its direct marketing agency of record after a review involving an undisclosed number of agencies.
The agency's Atlanta office will lead on service offerings like direct marketing, database management, predictive modeling and direct response television. The Greenwich, CT, office will help with direct while Arc Analytics, a Waltham, MA, research and consultancy division, will support with analytics and modeling.
“We're actually trying to generate leads for large construction equipment purchases, and we're also working on the rental side of the business,” said Ed Lisi, Greenwich-based senior vice president of direct and relationship marketing at Arc.
Part of Ford Motor Co.'s $20 billion Volvo Group, the Asheville, NC-based equipment arm makes articulated haulers, compact excavators, motor graders and wheel loaders. Though the leader in articulated haulers, Volvo competes market-wide with Caterpillar, Hitachi, Kubota, Bobcat, Komatsu and John Deere.
Arc will use mail, outbound telemarketing and advertising to target prospects. Its analytics arm will decide which audience to target based on the equipment.
“They've not been doing direct,” Lisi said. “They've done a couple of pieces through their branding agency, Masius, a business-to-business sibling of Arc, but it's for branding.”
Construction companies, government, landscapers, developers and road builders typically use Volvo equipment.
“We've done a series of meetings with [Volvo Construction] dealers,” Lisi said. “And some of the dealers said, 'If you can help our sales people not to have to make as many cold calls, they'll love you for it.' That, in a nutshell, is what we're trying to do — eliminate cold calls and promote precise targeting of best prospects.”
Arc Atlanta clients include General Motors Corp., The Coleman Co. and UPS. Formerly Clarion Marketing, it has 32 offices in 19 countries. It is fully owned by French agency conglomerate Publicis Groupe.
Meanwhile, Arc's Greenwich office has been tapped as the interactive agency for The Keebler Co.'s Web sites. Bought by cereal maker Kellogg Co. in March 2001, Keebler is the nation's No. 2 maker of cookies and crackers like Keebler, Cheez-It, Famous Amos, Ready Crust and Carr's.
Arc is to boost the visibility and use of www.keebler.com and www.thehollowtree.com. It will use entertainment and information to attract audiences of various ages.
