Leo Burnett’s office design shows its commitment to a through-the-line policy.
‘If you sat in on a brand team unit meeting and listened to the
conversation, I think you’d be hard-pressed in a lot of cases to tell
who did what job. The great thing is that there’s a kind of ‘spill
effect’ of interest and involvement which is very rich indeed,’ says
Steve Gatfield, chief executive of Leo Burnett, in explaining why its
everything-under-the-one-roof approach is the right one.
And what a roof it is. Seated in his James Bond-style office in South
Kensington, Gatfield is eager to emphasise the importance of his
agency’s new, tailor-made European headquarters.
Although moves had been made towards integration before the agency upped
sticks in May, he claims this gleaming, open-plan environment has acted
as a powerful catalyst in transforming it from an ad agency into a total
communications company.‘The dividends we’ve got from it are greater than
I dared hope for,’ he gushes. ‘It’s brought everything together in a
wonderfully organic way.’
This is not to say, he adds quickly, that being in an old building
negates the possibility of integrated work. Indeed, Gatfield’s much-
prized ‘brand team’ concept took shape at the agency’s old St Martin’s
Lane offices. McDonald’s, which is now Burnetts’ most integrated client,
began receiving the all-under-one-roof treatment a year before the move.
Nor is Gatfield ‘speaking out of ignorance’ when he condemns the
subsidiary set-up. Before the brand team reorganisation, there had been
attempts to split the agency into different operating companies.
‘I used to run something called Leo Burnett Direct, and there was also a
separate promotions company. The idea was to encourage cross-
fertilisation. But what we really wanted was to operate as a brand team
business. We felt very strongly that the best way of ensuring the
optimum fusion of understanding, insight and ideas was to get people in
brand teams rather than co-opted out of several individual operating
companies.
‘If you do work for a subsidiary,’ he continues, ‘your focus tends to be
on that individual company rather than on the whole group of companies.’
Despite all this corporate change, Gatfield maintains that winning new
integrated business was not uppermost in his mind. ‘That is not how we
set out our stall. What we’ve tried to build is a company that has a
better understanding of, and insight into, human behaviour.’
He notes, for example, that there has not been - nor are there plans for
- an in-house PR service. ‘We see that as a very different discipline
and are happy to work in alliances with PR companies.’
Apart from McDonald’s, Gatfield cites United Airlines and United
Distillers as ‘excellent examples’ of his agency’s ‘understanding and
insight’ in action.
The UA work meant pitting an unknown newcomer against the massively
dominant BA. ‘A very good example of using a sort of guerrilla
understanding of the audience,’ Gatfield says.
Veronica Graham, a Burnetts account director who has worked on the UA
account, says integration ‘came naturally’ because of the David versus
Goliath scenario. ‘They [UA] recognised we had to approach the brief in
quite a creative way.’ This creativity also resulted in 170 liveried UA
taxis.
‘These initiatives would have been expensive if we hadn’t integrated
them so well with all our other communications,’ Graham asserts.
United Distillers, notably its Gordon’s account, has been a ‘genuinely
multi-level communication programme,’ Gatfield claims. It has involved
‘shifting image, shifting attitude and plying people with a range of
messages’ - from the ‘invigoration’ campaign to a more product quality-
focused message in its direct work.
Matthew Eastlake, UK marketing manager of UA, certainly sounds like a
satisfied client: ‘A co-ordinated, through-the-line campaign ensures the
customer receives a consistent, balanced and, above all, relevant
message.’
Keeping direct marketing, advertising and sales promotion all under one
roof means that UA’s ‘ability to think and act effectively through the
line is significantly enhanced,’ Eastlake adds.
However, Mercedes - another Burnetts client - has some reservations
about the agency’s ability to cater for all its needs.
‘I am very pro integrated campaigns,’ Suzanne Purcell, communications
supervisor at Mercedes, says. ‘But I think there’s a limit to what one
company can provide on its own.’
Goff Moore, a senior group account director and the man responsible for
the United Distillers account, is unperturbed by this line of argument:
‘While having the whole thing under one roof must be the ultimate form
of integration, our first priority is to influence the total needs of
the brand. We are happy to provide integrated thinking, even if we
aren’t asked to provide integrated executions.’
This acts as a cue for some in-house jargon. ‘Solution neutral,’ says
Moore, means approaching accounts without any advertising bias. While
this may sound a bit too high-minded, it actually has a hard business
edge. ‘Increasingly, we are working on a fee basis, which can be a lot
more lucrative for us on a smaller budget than the commission system.’
Moore continues: ‘The successful account directors at Burnetts over the
next three, five, ten years are going to be the ones who move easily
through the theory and application of PR, event marketing, direct
marketing, programme sponsorship, and so on.’
Mark Stockdale, the agency’s deputy planning director and a key figure
on the Gordon’s account, introduces another bit of company lingo:
‘contact point analysis’, which means looking laterally at any media
that might present you with a captive audience.
He says Gordon’s has benefited from this philosophy ‘in a big way’. As
part of a two-year strategy review, the agency set up a multi-
disciplinary ‘hub group’ to ensure that presentation at the point of
purchase matched the high expectations generated by the cinema
advertising.
‘We also gave lots of practical advice on how to get the most out of the
brand. That is real integrated thinking. It’s not just about slapping
the same labels on lots of different things above and below the line.
It’s about getting out there in the real world and making absolutely
sure that the brand is practising what you are preaching. After all,
consumers will integrate your message, whether you want them to or not,’
he says.
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SELECTED BURNETTS CLIENTS
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Advertiser Ads DM SP Events
Gordon’s yes yes no no
Won 1994 DMA Gold award for consumer direct category
McDonald’s yes yes yes yes
Burnetts’ first - and now most - integrated client
United Airlines yes yes yes no
Burnetts developed the first ever painted tube train
Mercedes yes yes no no
Work includes supporting the national dealer network
Bell’s no yes no no
Possibly the first spirits brand to use relationship marketing
Pimms no yes no no
There has been no advertising account for the past four years
Nickelodeon no yes yes no
Helped launch the channel and its 250,000-name database
Express Newspapers yes no yes no
Mainly on the Sunday Express and Daily Star
Source: Campaign and Leo Burnett
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