Client Demand: OMD Opens Ignition Factory In Chicago

Jon-Haber-

With demand for its services from big clients like State Farm, McDonald's and PepsiCo on the rise, Omnicom's OMD has opened up a Chicago office for its media innovations unit Ignition Factory. The unit, now with about 20 staffers and growing, also has offices in New York and Los Angeles.

The shop has tapped Pranav Pandit to run the unit's new office as midwest director, Ignition Factory. Previously, Pranav was the OMD digital director for client Gatorade, the Chicago-based sports drink subsidiary of PepsiCo.

Separately, Trevor Guthrie was promoted to East Coast director of Ignition Factory, replacing Paul Leys, who left the agency to join a start-up.

Jonathan Haber, Chief Innovation Officer at OMD, said Pandit would be building a team of staffers to service Midwest Ignition Factory clients over the next couple of months. OMD client State Farm, based in Chicago, just signed on as a full-time Ignition Factory client. Gatorade has been a client for awhile, usually working with the New York office on projects up to now.

advertisement

advertisement

Currently, more than 20 OMD clients utilize the Ignition Factory on a regular basis, but many more, including Chicago-based McDonald's, J.C. Penny and Intel, have used it for project work. Haber said he expects to convert many more clients to full-time users of the shop, which specializes in applying technology advancements to develop creative uses of media.

For example, several years ago, Ignition brought OMD clients Pepsi and CBS together for a print campaign that featured a mini video player inserted in Entertainment Weekly that promoted CBS' new fall schedule, as well as Pepsi Max.

Current campaigns include an innovative promotion for Showtime's reality series "The Franchise," about the San Francisco Giants. The campaign features a digitally programmed vending machine at the Major League Baseball "Fan Cave" in New York City that dispenses baseballs when a smartphone user checks in with Foursquare. A few lucky participants receive balls autographed by Giants legend Willie Mays.

Another ongoing campaign for the Sobe line of tea drinks features a mobile game, developed by Ignition and sister gaming unit Zero Code, that's imbedded in the iPhone version of Mike Tyson's Punch Out game. The object of the SoBe game is to smash as much fruit as possible. The winner gets a trip to Las Vegas to train with Tyson.

Haber was named to his current post in July and now oversees, in addition to Ignition Factory, mobile shop Airwave, pop culture consultancy OMD Pop, Zero Code and Ventures unit VC@OMD. Previously, he supervised the Ignition Factory.

Ultimately, he said, the plan is to put one executive in charge of that unit. For now, he will rely on the office directors and several other key executives.

Next story loading loading..