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OgilvyOne reeled in five awards across four different pieces of client business at last night’s Direct Marketing Association creative awards, the DM industry’s premier award scheme.

The agency won a gold award in the IT/telecommunications sector for its IBM campaign, “Useless Book”, (pictured above) promoting IBM’s Information Management suite of products. The judges said: “We were impressed with the way such a relatively dry sector had been aspproached with wit and superlative attention to detail. The piece had clearly been produced with love and dedication.”

The same campaign took a bronze award in the media category for high-volume business direct mail.

In the digital category, the agency’s work for BT Business Total Broadband’s retention programme took a silver, as did its B-2-B campaign for British Gas’ “Generation Green” energy efficiency programme.

OgilvyOne rounded off its 2008 awards tally with a bronze for the “While you were away” customer win-back programme for BT Consumer.

Lavers: Free report offers sound advice

Customer Futures, the international members-based network for the improvement of customer experience which is owned by OgilvyOne Worldwide, has today published a free report which aims to help companies retain their customers in an economic downturn.

The report, The Importance of the Customer Experience in a Down Economy, is a collection of short papers written by some of the world’s top experts in Customer Experience Management. It was commissioned by Customer Futures MD Peter Lavers (pictured above) in collaboration with John Todor of The Whetstone Edge. Contributors include Ogilvy Group UK vice-chairman Rory Sutherland.

Originally designed for Customer Futures’ membership, the publication was felt to be sufficiently insightful and useful to be deserving of much wider distribution. It can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.customerfutures.com/downeconomypublication

Readers are also being encouraged to discuss and debate the issues raised in the report in the online forum on the same site.

Lavers said: “We think the report is essential reading for all business people who are facing tough decisions at the moment.  It contains numerous nuggets of good sound advice from 18 different contributors who are some of the World’s most respected experts in the field.”

Todor added: “This report provides critical insights into how the recession has impacted what customers value and how they make decisions. The insights and advice in the publication will help businesses get beyond coping and proactively focus on thriving.”

OgilvyOne London’s latest TV commercial for American Express’ Platinum Cashback credit card is entitled “Modelling Clay”. Using plasticine-style animation, it promotoes the benefits of the card – namely a whopping 5% cashback in the first three months.

Libby Young was the art director, James Sexton wrote it, and Arthur Parshotam was the creative director.

Click on the YouTube link below to view…

This week OgilvyOne and TM Forum - the world’s leading digital services trade consortium, with 700 member companies in 75 countries  - announced an initiative designed to unlock new revenue opportunities for communications service providers and advertisers.

OgilvyOne will support the first TM Forum Digital Commerce and Advertising Summit, to be held in Orlando, Florida from November 16th to 20th.  OgilvyOne will provide guidance on subjects such as targeted content, as well as chairing advertising sessions, at the ground-breaking summit.

According to Scott Seaborn, Head of Mobile Technologies at Ogilvy Group UK: “Mobile is the glue that connects brands, consumers and retailers. It also connects the physical and digital worlds – it connects the internet to the real world. In the past mobile marketing has been technology led, I believe it really needs to be creative led. Creative’s understand the consumer, if you understand them then any new technology channel is a plus. With a robust strategy that goes beyond the first engagement we can see fantastic results from mobile marketing.”

For more information about TM Forum’s Management World Orlando and the Digital Commerce and Advertising Summit, please visit: www.tmforum.org/orlando. For more on the TM Forum generally, go to:  www.tmforum.org

By Kevin Whitlock 

OgilvyOne London is delighted to announce today the promotion of its MD Annette King to chief executive, and Sam Williams-Thomas (the agency’s deputy managing director) to MD, with immediate effect.

Annette has worked at OgilvyOne London for the past eight years, enjoying a rapid rise through the ranks. She began her Ogilvy life with a four year stint running the Amex 360 EMEA business. In 2005 she was promoted to Client Service Director, with primary responsibility for new business. Among her achievements were helping to bring into the OgilvyOne fold Mothercare, HBOS and First Great Western – in the space of just one year.

Shortly after this she ran the agency’s burgeoning digital arm, OgilvyInteractive, and her record in new business and client services were rewarded in November 2006 with a promotion to Deputy MD. In 2007 she led the team which won that year’s biggest DM pitch, for British Gas, following it up not long after with British Airways’ global DM and loyalty business. She was appointed Managing Director at the beginning of 2008.

Sam is another long-standing OgilvyOne London leader, joining what was then known as O&M Direct as a Graduate Trainee in 1989. In his first two years he worked on a huge number of brands including BT, Help the Aged , Rank Xerox, Spillers Pet Foods. and  Pond’s.

In 1991 he moved to OgilvyOne New York, developing DM campaigns for Kraft General Foods. A five-year stint at Craik Jones followed, before Sam returned to the Ogilvy fold in 1999. Since then he has worked on many of the agency’s most important accounts past and present, including BT and TV Licensing. After a couple of years as client services director, he was promoted to Deputy Managing Director and Head of New Business earlier this year.

Paul O’Donnell, chairman, EAME of OgilvyOne Worldwide says: “It’s always a pleasure to be able to reward talent and loyalty and the promotions of Annette and Sam are an acknowledgement of their excellent records in the fields of new business and account management. They’ll make a great team as they complement each other perfectly; they also understand the agency, its culture and the client base intimately. Both are true ‘internationalists’ who have made a significant impact in the UK marketplace.

“The transition has been very smooth and it is very much ’business as usual’ for both our clients and our staff and everyone is looking forward to what we feel will be an exciting new era here at OgilvyOne London.”

Here’s a new DM mailer to showcase BT Vision’s on-demand film service, highlighting the breadth of new releases available and so drive trial and usage amongst the installed Vision base.

The pack – in the form of individualised cinema tickets in a wallet bearing the message “Missed the new releases at the cinema?” – promotes Vision’s film service to two distinct segments with different objectives. The first is to drive trial of on-demand with customers who aren’t currently purchasing on-demand films.  The other is to “upsell” existing film-on- demand purchasers to PictureBox, BT Vision’s new film pack which entitles customers to a choice of 28 movies a month for only £5.00.

Jeremy Mathias wrote it, Libby Young was the art director.

Customer Futures (www.customerfutures.com), an international network devoted to improved customer experience, owned by OgilvyOne, has set up its first US-based learning group, set to launch next month in New York.

Customer Futures’ learning groups allow executives from a wide range of non-competing industries to share knowledge and engage in open debate to gain insight and experience in the areas of customer management and customer experience management (CEM). Participants gain access to the organisation’s expertise through the on-line community and a members-only knowledge base.

The US forum, set to meet for the first time on September 9th, is being run jointly with Quaero, a leading provider of multichannel marketing solutions.  Top CEM experts including Dr. Naras Eechambadi, CEO of Quaero; and renowned author and entrepreneur Dr. James Barnes will be speaking. 

“Customer Futures is dedicated to promoting the improvement of the customer experience,” says Peter Lavers, global managing director. “We  provide an opportunity for executives to discuss what works and what doesn’t work within their organisations. It’s the ultimate educational experience in the field. In the New York group we will address one of the most critical issues companies face in CEM – engaging employees and intermediaries to deliver on the brand promise.”

Customer Futures is already established in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Canada. 

By Patrick Walsh

Following its successful mini-tour of the UK (see post dated 9th April), the Cisco Communication Clinic (co-created with OgilvyOne and Neo) is returning to Victoria station this week – this time for a fortnight!

This time the team is going all-out to attract small and medium-sized businesses to the Clinic with a complete media blitz. There are 48-sheet posters at the entrance to the station, floor stickers, a complete takeover of the passageway leading to the concourse (a first for Victoria!) and a Transvision screen which allows visitors to download video content to their mobiles.

Click on the thumbnails to see more, or go to: www.ciscoclinic.com

By Drew Bish and Martyn Gooding

Each year, OgilvyOne London creates a campaign to showcase IBM’s relationship with Wimbledon (the company has provided the tournament’s measurement systems for a number of years).

The Wimbledon campaign is a highlight of the creative year and our ads and websites have become famous for their technical innovation (bluetooth-enabled lawns, sensitive walls, anyone?).

This year, the task was a little different –  we got a global brief to bring to life IBM’s long-standing partnerships with all four tennis Grand Slams: Roland Garros, Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open; and which would also communicate the “Stop Talking. Start Doing” theme adopted for the 2008 campaign.

To do this, we created a website which captures IBM’s “innovation agenda” at each tournament; and we also came up with digital and press creative to drive people to the site.  The work had to resonate with IBM’s upmarket business sector audience, had to be adaptable and had to have longevity – quite a challenge.

With a target audience that’s time-poor, and a subject matter that could lean towards being dry, the other challenge of the site was to quickly communicate the “Stop Talking…” message but in an interesting, interactive way.

Our key themes conceptually and visually were that IBM is the link between the four tournaments which otherwise operate in isolation, so the visual is derived from the idea of IBM literally bringing the tournaments together.  Visit the site for yourself here: www.ibm.com/grandslam.

Click on the thumbnails above and below to see screengrabs and the press ad.

By Kevin Whitlock

Partners in life as well as in work, Charlie Wilson and Emma De La Foss have produced some of OgilvyOne’s best work in recent years – including campaigns for British Gas, IBM, First Great Western, the Art Fund and, of course, Cancer Research UK.

This week their achievements were officially recognised when they were  voted into the Hospital Club 100 – a list of the top people in the media and creative industries, from the people behind the renowned London drinkery. Charlie and Emma came in at number 70, one place above Richard Four Weddings Curtis  and ahead of such ad luminaries as Wayne Arnold and Farah Ramzan Golant.

The inaugural The Hospital Club 100 was launched at the beginning of June  in association with The Independent’s Media Weekly section. It’s a list of the stars working in London’s creative industries; film, television, music, new media, journalism, publishing, performing arts, marketing, fashion, art, and advertising. Nominations were compiled through a democratic process – anyone working in the creative industries has been able to go to The Hospital Club’s website and vote (tens of thousands did, apparently).

The list was topped by “graffiti artist” Banksy, with muscian and producer Mark Ronson coming in second.

To find out more, go to: www.thehospitalclub.com