360i News

We’re excited to announce today that 360i has hired Adam Kerj as Chief Creative Officer, effective immediately. Adam joins as us a member of the agency’s executive team and will oversee 360i’s creative department. A pioneer in identifying and implementing big ideas that solve business challenges, Adam’s expertise and passion will expand our current capabilities to help brands connect with people in the digital age.

Prior to 360i, Adam served as Executive Creative Director and Founding Partner at Saatchi & Saatchi in Stockholm, Sweden. He’s a highly-decorated creative who has garnered more than 50 international industry awards in his career, including several from the Cannes Lions, CLIOs, New York Festival Awards, FAB and Eurobest.

Across your entire portfolio, what work are you most proud of, and why?

AK: I’m most proud of my work for Ariel, a detergent brand within P&G Nordic. The campaign, called “The Ariel Fashion Shoot,” was a classic product demo remixed for the 2012 audience. The shoot was the world’s biggest product demo in detergent history – and it was completely transparent. This meant that people could – for the first time ever – see that Ariel’s new stain-fighting formula actually worked as well as the brand said it did, because we washed the clothes in front of a live audience of viewers.

But what makes the campaign truly innovative is that we invited consumers to take part in the demo themselves by allowing them to take aim at premium designer clothes and stain them. To pull this off, we custom-built an industrial robot and armed it with lingonberry jam (a Scandinavian staple), chocolate sauce and ketchup. Then, we connected it to Facebook.

The results exceeded our expectations, as post-campaign awareness for Ariel reached an all-time high. To me, this campaign was a fantastic example of how we used a relevant idea to fuel conversations online. With very little paid media, we were able to own conversations online regarding detergent – proving that if you’re relevant to the consumer and facilitate a worthwhile value exchange, brands can create exciting conversations around any topic – even something as commonplace as detergent.

Of course, I also credit P&G for being so committed to change the way their brand was communicating to its consumers and for understanding the difference between being simply ‘digital’ and being ‘social and participatory.’ It’s no surprise to me that the campaign was recently voted one of the Best Digital Ideas of 2011 by Adweek, and continues to garner accolades in several global awards programs.

Continue reading our Q&A with Adam Kerj

At the 2012 Shorty Awards, Dentyne and 360i took home top honors for Best Use of Social Media for a Consumer Product or Service. The Shorty Awards, now in its fourth year, has been named the “Oscars” of social media by the New York Times. In 2011, Dentyne launched a faux-PSA campaign around the message of “Practicing Safe Breath” and enlisted 360i to bring the program to life in social spaces. The campaign yielded a 1,000% increase in Facebook fans in less than a year and more than 820K interactions (likes, comments, shares, etc.). Dentyne’s Facebook posts generated 2X as many comments as other brands with the same fan base.

Clients USA Network and Coca-Cola were also named finalists in their respective categories:
* Best Viral Campaign – USA Network & 360i for ‘The Fall of Sam Axe’ (USA Network also took home top honors in the Best Social Media for TV category for its Psych ”Hashtag Killer” campaign)
* Best Facebook Brand Presence – The Coca-Cola Company & 360i

We’re also delighted to announce that the agency has picked up two IAC (Internet Advertising Competition) Awards. Kraft Foods’ ‘Make Something Amazing’ website won an Outstanding Website Award in the Consumer Goods category. The site launched earlier this year with the aim of inspiring online conversations to build emotional connections and increase loyalty to the brand. Make Something Amazing represented the first unified digital presence for Kraft’s roster of cheese brands. Creatively, the effort brought to life a new way to market recipes online that will change the way people consume recipe content in digital.

      
360i’s internal creative & technology team also took home an Outstanding Website Award for the 360i Careers site.

Congratulations to our clients and to the 360i teams that worked on these programs.

For the second year running, Ad Age has named 360i to its “Best Places to Work” roster, which ranks the top employers in advertising and media based on employee engagement and corporate culture. 360i made the list at #7, up 11 spots from last year.

360i is the only agency to be featured in Ad Age’s Agency A-List AND Best Places to Work issues for two years running. We see these two accolades as very closely related and a testament to our culture of innovation that is at the heart of all we do. This agency was built to help clients ‘Navigate Where There Are No Roads’ and we take that some approach to employee development. When you foster an environment of entrepreneurialism, creativity and passionate curiosity, you can accomplish just about anything. That’s compelling to today’s marketing talent and leads not only to higher engagement and retention levels overall, but the ability to produce some of the best work for our clients.

Congratulations to our entire team and all the other agencies on the Best Place To Work List.

Eric Bacolas is Chief Talent Officer at 360i.

Today we announced a strategic partnership with social software firm Expion that will result in a powerful integrated earned and paid Facebook platform and services offering, bringing together community management, advertising, social applications and advanced analytics to measure and improve our clients’ Facebook marketing efforts. Our parent company Dentsu Network West has also reached an agreement to take a minority stake in Expion to catapult the company’s growth.

This move underscores our agency’s firm belief that the success of brands in social rests heavily on a keen understanding of the interplay between paid and earned media. It’s a vision shared not only with Expion, but with Facebook as well, which is slated to announce a series of updates at the Feb. 29 fMC Conference that will further expedite this convergence.

Despite continued investment in Facebook by brands – marketers created four million brand pages and spent more than $3 billion on advertising within the platform in 2011 – there exists a technology gap that has prohibited brands from effectively managing and optimizing across paid and earned media. Our goal in partnership with Expion is to therefore create an environment that promotes seamless cross-functional collaboration and more holistic management of a brand’s overall Facebook program. For example, real-time community analytics will inform our ad targeting and bidding strategies, resulting in better advertising performance. We will also be able to more closely align advertising with content strategy to drive deeper engagement and fan acquisition.

Earned and paid media will continue to converge across the social ecosystem, with each having a multiplying impact on the other. This creates a need for an integrated approach to managing and measuring social programs across community, content and advertising. We look forward to working with Expion to advance this shared vision of the future of social media.

Social Media Week 2012 is fast approaching and will present social media inspired events in 12 different cities from Feb.13-17. We’re thrilled to be participating once again, and have crafted a stellar line up of events for social media professionals and enthusiasts. Join us!

*The Mobile-Social Living Room: How Emerging Media is Reviving the Live Television Experience

We kick off #SMW12 with a panel discussion entitled, “The Mobile-Social Living Room: How Emerging Media is Reviving the Live Television Experience.” This session will uncover how networks are using social to breathe new life into the live television experience, capitalizing on shifting media consumption habits and creating a model of the future when it comes to TV content creation and promotion. Moderated by David Berkowitz, VP of Emerging Media at 360i, the panel includes speakers from USA Network, BRAVO, Get Glue and Shazam.

Location: Art & Culture Content Hub at Hearst Magazines
Date: Monday, February 13 at 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM
This event is sold out. Click to learn more.

*How Oreo is Using Social to Celebrate 100 Years of Brand Love

Next, we’re celebrate the World’s Favorite and Most ‘Liked’ Cookie leading up to Oreo’s 100^th Birthday in spring 2012. Beth Reilly, Digital & Social Marketing Lead at Kraft Foods and Sarah Hofstetter, President of 360i, will lead our session on “How Oreo is Using Social to Celebrate 100 Years of Brand Love.” We will outline how the iconic brand is connecting with people via social, building and spreading brand love within a loyal community of fans and followers in online spaces. This event is currently sold out, but the session will be viewable via Livestream (details to come).

Location: 360i HQ
Date: Tuesday, February 14 at 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
This event is sold out. Click to learn more.

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We are honored to announce that 360i has been named in Ad Age’s Agency A-List Issue as No. 1 on its roster of “10 Standout Shops”. The annual A-List issue highlights the top agencies in Ad Land, with this particular distinction citing our near-perfect client retention, track record for innovation, responsible growth and  thought leadership program that provides regular insights across nearly every facet of digital.

Watch the video below to learn more about our agency philosophy:

This honor follows recent accolades which including spots on both Ad Age and Crain’s “Best Places to Work” lists and a nod from Fast Company as one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies.” In 2010, we landed the number six position on Ad Age’s Agency A-List, making 360i the only digital agency to be honored in the A-List issue two years in row.

Congratulations to our entire team – clients, employees and partners – for their contributions to our recent distinctions. We look forward to continuing to move the needle for our clients’ businesses through breakthrough digital programs and fostering a unique culture that values collaboration and innovation every step of the way.

We are thrilled to announce that Sarah Hofstetter, SVP of Brand Strategy & Emerging Media, has been recognized by several industry associations as one of the leading minds in marketing and digital communications.

Sarah was named Best Women Professional of the Year in the Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations category by the Golden Bridge Awards, which honor women across the global “whose outstanding achievements contribute to the well-being and future of communities worldwide.” In addition, the Social Media Society  recently named Sarah to its list of Social Media All-Stars. Per the organization, this distinction is awarded to the “people behind great social media profiles and campaigns across the country.”

Sarah was also named a finalist in the Stevies Awards for Women in Business for Best Executive in the Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations category and a finalist for the Digital Communications Leader of the Year Award, given by PR News.

Congratulations to Sarah on these achievements!