Fuel North America has been named advertising agency of record by Vindigo, which creates personal navigation software for mobile and hand-held wireless devices.
OgilvyOne and JWT Digital also held discussions with Vindigo on the account, for which there was no incumbent. The budget was not disclosed.
“We liked the product. We sent an e-mail. We had lunch. We had a follow-up meeting and began working for them on a project basis because they had immediate needs in terms of communications,” said Andy Deitchman, partner and director of client services at Fuel, New York.
Vindigo allows users of mobile devices and hand-held devices such as the Palm OS to search for restaurants, movie theaters and times, and shopping locations in their neighborhood.
Fuel will help create brand awareness for Vindigo, which has been on the market less than a year. The agency will work on marketing messages that cover print, radio, direct mail, point-of-sale, outdoor and the Internet. A guerrilla marketing campaign also is planned.
Launched in April, Fuel is part of Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, a New York ad agency. Owned by Euro RSCG Worldwide, Messner Vetere is the world's fifth-largest ad agency network.
“I think [Vindigo] wanted us to humanize and make relevant a new technology,” Deitchman said. “They want us to have communications that express the inherent simplicity of the Vindigo software.”
Vindigo's goal is to be known as the provider of location-based software, especially in the fast-growing wireless mobile and hand-held market.
“The overarching strategy is to get people to want to download onto their Palm device,” Deitchman said. “That's the objective, and we're trying to do so using a number of different communications venues to communicate to people how relevant this software is and how useful and simple it is.”
