Draft Madrid retained the Spanish Public Treasury account for the fourth time since previous agency Leader Mix Madrid lost the business seven years ago.
The agency competed with the Madrid offices of McCann-Erickson, The Sales Machine, Group K, Grey and Wunderman. Draft Madrid is charged with direct and interactive marketing, promotions, events and telemarketing.
Draft Madrid’s goal is to help the Treasury sell Spanish tax-free bonds over other European alternatives. The target is upper-income men older than 45 with a university degree.
“They don’t have point-of-sale marketing,” Patricia Deizaguirre, chief account manager at Draft Madrid, said about the Spanish Treasury. “They always need a financial intermediary to sell their bonds, and one of the highlights [of the work] we’ve done for them is that we’re one of the first treasuries to allow you to buy and sell bonds over the Internet.”
RMG Connect Buys Direct.com
RMG Connect Worldwide, the relationship marketing agency of WPP Group PLC’s JWT shop, bought integrated marketing communications services provider Direct.com for an undisclosed sum.
Founded nine years ago, Direct.com offers direct marketing and consultancy services related to online marketing, technology development and merchandising. Its expertise in the Hispanic markets across Latin and North Americas was another key reason for its acquisition.
Direct.com CEO Lance Lazarus and creative director Douglas Fajardo will report to RMG Connect Worldwide CEO Philip Greenfield in New York.
Webloyalty Retains Key Contracts
Webloyalty, a provider of online marketing and subscription services, renewed multiyear, multimillion-dollar marketing contracts with clients like Haband Online, Joann.com, Marketworks.com, Time-Life and Lillian Vernon.
These clients are among 95-plus who use Webloyalty to offer savings and rewards to consumers through online marketing programs. Its programs include Reservation Rewards, Travel Values Plus, Buyer Assurance, Wallet Shield and Shopper Discounts & Rewards.
The Norwalk, CT-based firm has a membership of more than 1.4 million online consumers who participate in one or many of its five subscription-based programs for cash rebates, savings, travel discounts, extended warranties and fraud protection.
Last year, Webloyalty reported revenue of $86.2 million, up 56 percent from $55.4 million in 2003.
Advertising.com Debuts New Network
America Online Inc.’s Advertising.com introduced a new network to offer advertisers a centralized source for delivering rich media advertising campaigns.
The network, in use by specialty retailer Circuit City, lets advertisers automatically execute rich media campaigns across an inventory of more than 55 online publishers. It goes beyond user-initiated formats to cover automatic ones like floating, auto-expandable and sound-enabled creative.
Advertising.com, Baltimore, claims the network meets Interactive Advertising Bureau rich media specifications, reaching more than 78 million unique users each month with 2.4 billion monthly available impressions. The company said the network includes many verticals, especially entertainment and sports sites with a tendency to offer better interaction rates with rich media ads.
In another measure, Advertising.com also standardized ad specifications for the network via partnerships with preferred media vendors Eyeblaster, PointRoll and DART Motif.
“Until now, advertisers who wanted to run the most advanced rich-media ads had to hand-pick publishers that could handle them,” Advertising.com president/CEO Scott Ferber said in a statement. “It meant managing multiple placements with multiple specifications and it limited the volume of consumers that could be reached. Our new network eliminates these issues. With a single ad buy and a single set of creative specifications, advertisers can reach millions of users each month across leading rich-media-enabled Web sites.”
CondeNet Taps Avenue A/Razorfish
CondeNet, the online arm of magazine publisher Conde Nast Publications, selected Avenue A/Razorfish as its interactive consultant.
The agency, owned by Seattle-based aQuantive Inc., will help redesign and integrate CondeNet’s lifestyle, brand and corporate Web sites. Services include strategic guidance, program management and implementation, as well as search engine optimization, Interwoven content management implementation and data warehousing.
Avenue A/Razorfish’s work on CondeNet’s travel site at www.concierge.com recently was completed.
CondeNet’s other sites include www.epicurean.com for food, www.style.com for fashion and http://men.style.com for men’s lifestyle. The New York-based company also runs its parent firm’s magazine brand sites.
MediaCom Hires Clarke for Asia-Pacific
WPP Group PLC’s MediaCom Worldwide media communications specialist named Kevin Clarke as CEO of MediaCom APAC.
Clarke most recently was CEO of MindShare Thailand, opening that office eight years ago after serving as media director in agencies across China, Hong Kong and Australia.
MediaCom also named a new management team at MediaCom APAC to include Duane Bruner as director of media buying and optimization, David Crossley and Nihar Das as directors of strategic planning, and Adrian King as director of research.
Clarke and his new team are charged with strengthening MediaCom’s position in the Asia-Pacific region. Clarke will report to John Steedman, chairman/CEO of Group M APAC, and Alexander Schmidt-Vogel, CEO of MediaCom Worldwide.
MediaCom is a unit within WPP’s Group M media agency group. MediaCom’s constituent shops include online agency Beyond Interactive, direct agency Direct MediaCom, communications sponsorship specialist Sponsor MediaCom, MediaCom Entertainment for branded entertainment and StoreCom for retail marketing.
Mickey Alam Khan covers Internet marketing campaigns and e-commerce, agency news as well as circulation for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
