• by Adam Herman , June 7, 2002

Whether current technologies or pie-in-the-sky innovations, The Digital Edge is constantly exploring and testing new ways to promote and market their clients’ products and services for today and for tomorrow. “The future of media,” according to Alan Schanzer, SVP, managing director, “will be shaped by several marketplace forces including media convergence, consolidation, continued audience fragmentation, and the development of the Internet as a core marketing platform.”

The Digital Edge was formed in 1999 as an independent unit, to provide interactive and integrated services to its own clients, and clients of The Media Edge, the media-buying arm of Young and Rubicam.

The Digital Edge is based in New York, with offices in San Francisco and other cities around the globe. Schanzer estimates the New York office alone did $65 million in billings in last year. The Digital Edge boasts core competencies in interactive media planning and buying, traditional media planning and buying, campaign optimization and management, convergence media consulting, research, and interactive creative development.

Through these disciplines, the firm bridges the gap between on- and offline media by providing media solutions that connect the Internet with television, print, and other traditional media. The agency spans strategy, cross-media negotiation, and execution for clients such as Sony, AT&T, Accenture, Xerox, Dr Pepper/7-Up, Paramount, GlaxoSmithKline, and Campbell’s. According to Schanzer, The Digital Edge tends to focus on clients who have “established business models with growing cross-media or interactive media budgets.” Schanzer was asked to set up this unit because he understood media buying from both offline and online perspectives. Before heading up The Digital Edge, he was the associate media director overseeing the AT&T Consumer and Business-to-Business media account at The Media Edge, where he spearheaded the development of the AT&T Print Optimization system. Prior to this he was at DMB&B, where he started his career, working on such prominent brands as Burger King, Proctor & Gamble, and Magnavox.

“One of the things that makes it exciting to work here is that our clients give us the freedom to test cutting-edge media opportunities,” said Schanzer. “Clients come to us with ideas or we bring them ideas, and we help guide them through the digital and traditional space. These new communication channels provide our clients with more opportunities to reach the desired consumer. When they test, they get ahead of the competition, gain real estate, discover ‘learnings’ for the future.”

The primary place this test takes place is in the firm’s innovative New Media Lab. In this facility, located in the New York office, clients and The Digital Edge staff get hands-on experience with new communication devices and technologies.

To date, the New Media Lab has delivered live demonstrations of creative executions and media placements using High-Definition TV, Wink Communications, WebTV Plus, TiVo, networked gaming and web browsing on Sega Dreamcast, interactive DVD content, and interactive programming guides from TVGuide Interactive and @TV. “We are currently running small campaigns for Glaxo using Wink technology,” Schanzer said. “What we are doing now is small in scale, but it is extremely valuable for our clients to understand how emerging technology can help to achieve marketing goals. Several other tests are underway or are being planned using various convergence platforms for many TDE clients.”

“It is vital that we reach the next generation of consumers in new ways,” added Adam Gerber, VP, director of media strategy. “In 10 years, Generation Y kids will be the adults everyone is trying to reach, and they do not respond to advertising the same way adults do today. This generation tunes out paid advertising. That is why marketing needs to be more integrated with the message, almost in the content itself.” Two examples that Gerber cited were the BMW mini-films and the Victoria Secret online runway show as ways of surrounding the brand around great content. “This is not unlike custom publishing from the magazine world,” noted Gerber.

Another approach The Digital Edge takes is to encourage the consumers to discover the product and try it out on their own. “I hate the phrase, ‘Beyond the Banner Buy,’” said Nick Dimitrakiou, group media director, “but this is how you have to think, moving forward.” The Digital Edge did just this with the novel idea they had for their client Sony portable audio and digital imaging. Although the idea may not fall under a “media buy,” it is this type forward-thinking, new-media platform which they feel gets the best results.

“Sony needed to target men and women 12–24, and we felt the best way to communicate the benefits of Sony was to create a unique user experience with the product,” continued Dimitrakiou. “We worked with Shockwave to create new software, which we call PhotoJam. It is essentially a downloadable applet that can create a musical photo show by combining jpeg photos and MP3 music files. Users can interact with the Sony brand by making their own music videos.”

The campaign, which ran from November 2000 to January 2001, simply used :15 Flash banner ads on the Sony and Shockwave site linking users to the download; they estimated receiving 100,000 downloads. “We received 200,000 downloads in the first five weeks alone,” explained Dimitrakiou.

MediaPost VP of Operations Adam Herman can be reached at adam@mediapost.com.