THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
24 | LONDON ADVERTISING
»Run a competition with a £100,000
prize to find the best digital talent,
incubated the winner and secured
£4 million investment, making it the
most funded tech start-up in Europe
»Achieved an average margin over
ten years four times higher than the
industry average.
In the past 12 months we have won
a global Silicon Valley Tech brand, a
pan-European mobile operator and
are currently running the Nigerian
Presidential campaign.
At a time when the UK needs to
demonstrate its ability to innovate,
build its creative industries and
compete globally, we show what is
possible. With the uncertainties of
Brexit, the fact that 92 per cent of
our revenue is ex-UK, or EU, is, we
hope, a cause for confidence for
other businesses. Our work, created in
London by our team of 22 people, has
been executed in 36 languages and
135 countries.
A new approach to
international expansion
As a result of disrupting the approach
of our industry, we have bucked the
trend of its long decline in profitability
by posting financial results with a
profit margin four times higher than
the average UK advertising agency.
We achieve this not by marking up
production costs – in fact, we offer
our clients 100 per cent transparency
in pricing – but by stripping out
the outdated overheads of local
offices. Our business development
strategy is to establish “embassies”
in key regional hubs, staffed by our
“ambassadors”, acting as a local
point of contact through which clients
can access our core proposition of
“London-quality creative”.
Our ambassador to the Middle East
has helped secure a number of new
client wins including Saudi Telecom,
Muscat Insurance and Piramal, one of
India’s largest conglomerates valued
at $10 billion. Our ambassador to
Africa has helped secure a number
of new client wins including Harrods,
UBS, Nigerian National Lottery, the
Nigerian Presidential election and
Invest Africa.
An exemplar of our model in
action: Mandarin Oriental
Luxury hotel advertising usually focuses
on the product: beautiful hotel rooms,
doormen and lobbies. The result was
that all the ads looked the same, so
no one could remember the brand
advertising. It also seemed obvious to
us that a guest who would be willing
to spend over £1,000 per night on
a room expects these aspects, so to
advertise them would be a waste
ofmoney.
Leading Chinese
photographer Chen
Man
At a time when
the UK needs
to demonstrate
its ability to
innovate, build
its creative
industries and
compete
globally, we
show what is
possible
“
25LONDON ADVERTISING |
DIGITAL, CULTURE, MEDIA & SPORT
We asked our client, Mandarin
Oriental, to provide us with a list of
their VIP guests and they gave us a
veritable who’s who of the world’s
movers and shakers.
This led to our strategy: the rich and
famous – who can afford to stay
anywhere – choose to stay at Mandarin
Oriental. This led naturally to a
testimonial-style campaign. However, the
problem is that people often remember
the celebrity, not the brand. Our creative
leap was to link the client’s iconic fan
logo with the line “He’s a fan”.
The next challenge was how to get
top talent which typically would cost
more than the client’s total advertising
budget? We said, somewhat unusually,
that we would not pay them. We
wanted them to be genuine fans, so
instead we would offer a $10,000
charity donation and ten room nights
for each year we use their images and
videos that we shoot with them.
Remarkably, we have managed to
sign 45 leaders in their fields including
Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu, Dame
Darcey Bussell, Christian Louboutin and
the world’s most followed man Chen
Kun, who has 90 million followers on
social media.
By using the cache and credibility of
new fans to reach new guests in new
markets rather than focusing on the
product, the campaign has always
remained relevant and spearheads all
the brand’s marketing communications.
Our fan campaign has helped Mandarin
Oriental to grow by over 700 per cent,
from a small Asian hotel group with
just seven properties, to a leading
luxury brand with over 50 properties
across theglobe.
The LONDON culture
We have created a strong culture
across the agency by adopting
Churchill’s mantra of “Never give
up. Never give up. Never give up.”
Our client wanted to hide the ugly
scaffolding on the front of Mandarin
Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge during
its renovation, but Westminster
Council does not allow any advertising
on buildings in central London.
Our team spent 18 months negotiating
with Westminster Council to secure
planning permission for a poster
which we described as civic art. We
commissioned Sir Peter Blake to create
a collage based on our fan advertising
campaign, which was the size of 38
double decker buses. We then got 100
of the hotel’s celebrity fans to appear
on it for free. By not giving up our
team was able to get a poster up in a
location where advertising is banned
that generated £8 million in media,
social and PR value for our client from
a £30,000 spend.
We have
created a
strong culture
by adopting
Churchill’s
mantra of
‘Never give up.
Never give up.
Never give up.’
“
“
Oscar winner Rami
Malek
Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett
Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles
