The design company, Wolff Olins, has joined forces with the
international copywriting agency, World Writers, to carry off the pounds
12 million task of advertising the relaunched Freepages service.
The pair won the business earlier this year in a secret pitch which is
understood to have included the incumbent, Manifesto. The campaign,
which breaks next Wednesday, was art directed by Wolff Olins staff and
written by the World Writers managing director, Simon Anholt.
It is the first time that World Writers, which specialises in adapting
international campaigns for specific markets, has written an
above-the-line campaign solely for the UK. For Wolff Olins, the deal
underlines its commitment to move towards traditional advertising. The
brand consultancy, which was involved in Channel 5’s retuning campaign
last year, created a poster campaign for Lloyds Bank earlier this
year.
Freepages, the free telephone service, will rebrand as Scoot with a
through-the-line campaign involving television, press, radio, outdoor,
direct mail and sponsorship of Channel 5’s weather reports and London
Underground’s tube maps.
Wolff Olins was originally called upon in January to redesign the
branding. The client then called a pitch for the advertising, at which
point the alliance with World Writers was struck.
John Williamson, the head of consultancy at Wolff Olins, said:
’Advertising agencies are now talking about branding, as are management
consultancies. We always have done, and now we are broadening our offer.
We work with lots of ad agencies, but sometimes it seems appropriate to
pitch for the advertising business ourselves.’
The Scoot campaign aims to take an irreverent approach to the telephone
directory service. One of the three 30-second TV ads features a little
girl on a spacehopper bouncing towards the camera. We hear a farting
noise and the girl sinks out of view. The voiceover says: ’I need a
...’
’We want, eventually, to own that piece of language,’ Anholt said. ’If
people want to fill in the gaps with something rude, that’s fine by
us.’
The media planning and buying for the campaign, which begins with
48-sheet posters, is by TMD Carat.
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