• by Adam Herman , July 9, 2002

Arnold Worldwide is attracting as much attention for its innovative media buying tactics as it is for its famous creative campaigns. With its award-winning, pop-culture-impacting creative for the Volkswagen Beetle and its annual media billings approaching $2 billion, Arnold Worldwide has firmly established itself as a mega ad agency. In a company with such a huge reputation for creative excellence, the media department, especially the interactive media side, could easily be looked upon as the ugly stepchild, if it is even noticed at all.

“Arnold wouldn’t be as successful today if it wasn’t for the great creative that we do,” says David Song, vice president, interactive associate media director of Arnold MPG. “That said, everyone here also believes that our media department is a powerhouse. Ninety percent of our clients use us for both creative and media, which says something in the age of unbundling of agency services. In the end, media is pushed by creative to be a better department.”

In the fall of 2001, Arnold MPG was the first agency to hold an online upfront for its entire client base. When the smoke cleared, Yahoo! was one of the last sites standing and took in the lion’s share of the online dollars. Some have questioned the strategy of giving so much to just one large site, but Song believes there are great advantages to this quality-over-quantity buying method. “By committing more to fewer sites, we are trying to establish a partner mentality with the sites on our plan, which in the end helps us achieve innovative success,” he says. “One obvious benefit is great rates. For starters, we cut down our CPM on Yahoo! by an unheard-of 75%. Then Yahoo! went the extra mile by creating unique content to surround our client’s ads, inventing new unit sizes, and providing us with custom branding studies to show how the campaigns were performing.”

Another tactic that distinguishes Arnold from other interactive agencies is that it is far less concerned with optimizing every banner on a daily basis, as some agencies do. Since the sites are considered partners, not vendors, they are less apt to constantly shift dollars around. “We are focused more on the front end of the buy than the back end,” says Song. “If we do smart thinking in selecting the best site, there shouldn’t be that much need to optimize at the end.”

Arnold MPG’s interactive group, which provides online planning and buying, wireless, ITV, affiliate marketing, and search engine optimization, is fully integrated with the rest of the media department and the creative group. The reason that Arnold’s services are so closely aligned is that each department has bought into a single philosophy of Brand Essence. This concept, central to what the company does, helps Arnold identify and sell rational attributes of a brand in an emotional way that connects with consumers. The philosophy is, only when both components — the rational (what the brand stands for) and the emotional (how the brand looks and feels) — are combined in a single campaign will the brand selling power be maximized.

“All our creative and media strategies are based on the Brand Essence philosophy,” reiterates Song. “We don’t necessarily use, as measure of success, a ‘cost per something.’ Media results are judged on how the effort affects the brand, such as brand recall or sales increases. In the end, we look at the total media communication value of TV, print, and online combined, because this is the most important thing to our clients. It is not unusual for us to move dollars from traditional to online if online is doing better in achieving our goals.” This cross-platform thinking has certainly benefited the interactive group. According to Song, clients on average spend about 10% of their media budgets for online, which is about double what online’s share of media dollars is across the ad industry.

A good example of Arnold’s buying philosophy is the media plan it put together for the new Volkswagen EuroVan. The objectives were to increase site traffic, drive qualified users to the EuroVan section of VW.com, and increase brochure requests and dealer searches. To capture the EuroVan brand essence, they bought a select group of sites based on the audience mindset, not the typical auto websites. The buy centered on Yahoo!, USA Today.com, Weather.com, GORP, TV Guide.com and TV Guide IPG, and keyword searches on Google and Overture.

“The use of rich media [such as DHTML, Shoshkeles, Point-Roll banners] was key to creating awareness and breaking through the clutter,” says Andrea Millett, interactive planner. The online campaign, in tandem with the offline media, drove in 60% more visitors to the EuroVan section of VW.com than anticipated, far exceeding their goal, and generated a significant amount of brochure requests and dealer searches. “Our client was so happy with the results. They really have complete trust in our online media planning and they are now willing to let us try new things for them,” concludes Millett.

Arnold MPG is the combined media department of Arnold Communications and Media Planning Group, both part of Arnold Worldwide, which itself is a division of Paris-based Havas Advertising. Arnold MPG, which is headquartered in Boston and has offices in New York, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C., reported online media billings of $50 million in 2001, landing it in twelfth place on MEDIA Magazine’s list of top 50 interactive agencies. Some of Arnold’s online clients include Fidelity Investment, Footjoy, Inktomi, McDonald’s, Monster.com, Procter & Gamble, Royal Caribbean, and recent account wins of Southern Comfort, Bounty, Welch’s Grape Juice, Washingtonpost.com, and Bermuda Tourism.