In Sydney, Bush Sheppard Atkins has launched with A$5 million
(US$2.5 million) in new business, while a Melbourne shop, Make
Some Noise, has made a bullish charge into youth marketing.
Elsewhere, industry stalwart George Patterson Bates has been forced to
retrench 20 staff in the wake of the collapse of airline brand Ansett,
which billed $60 million each year through the agency.
Rumours suggest several other agencies have also shed handfuls of staff
over the past few weeks with a global recession now looking increasingly
inevitable.
Make Some Noise principal Darren Fishman, formerly a writer with DDB,
said his strategy was to provide a diverse range of services in one
specialised field in order to buck depressed advertising spend
conditions.
"Having recognised music and entertainment as a uniting force within the
much-coveted youth market, Make Some Noise is helping clients speak
successfully to the fashion-conscious, entertainment-consuming community
and do it in a way that is readily accepted by the taste-makers among
this media-savvy crowd," Fishman said.
A string of clients have already signed over projects, including Future
Entertainment, Earthcore, Melbourne's Prince of Wales Hotel and Seven
Nightclub.
In contrast, BSA, which is headed by ex-strategy partner at Foote Cone &
Belding, Steve Sheppard, former executive creative director with Lowe
Lintas, Gaby Bush, and Atkins & Atkins founder Michael Atkins, is taking
a broader approach.
It has won contracts with Country Energy and building society IMB.
Incorporating existing business from some of the merged parties, BSA
will have capitalised billings this year of $12 million.
Other clients include Orix, Retravision, Proton, and Cottee Health.
According to the principals, growth in the current environment was still
possible; it was just a matter of responding to changing audience
needs.
"Ours is now a society in which uniqueness and differentiation are no
longer just ideals, they are prerequisites for survival," Sheppard
said.
"It's our belief that in this new environment an audience can no longer
be bought, it has to be earned."
The team has also developed a proprietary brand system called Generator
which is based on the world's best practice learning from Harvard, the
Centre for Archetypal Studies and motiva- tional philosophy. It involves
a five-stage process which is applied to one-day workshops in order to
"create, manage and develop distinctive brand meaning in order to create
powerful, differentiated brands".
The stages consist of a brand values analysis, identification of key
brand motivators and primary and secondary archetypes, strategy
development and creative property development.
