• by December 27, 2005

OMMA's Agency of the Year is a bit like the "Little Engine that Could" -- it thinks it can, it thinks it can, and then it delivers beyond all expectations.

Our 2005 Agency of the Year, t:m interactive, is a little shop in Irving, Texas, with big clients, including American Airlines and ExxonMobil. It snared OMMA's top honors with an unusual flair that combines cutting-edge and highly creative media work, a savvy use of online ad units, video, and animation, and finely honed online/offline integration capabilities. And it consistently finesses demonstrable return on investment on behalf of its clients.

At its Flash-packed Web site, t:m interactive challenges visitors with a bold invitation: "If time is money, you better open this box." For all those agencies that claim to "think outside the box," here's one that actually burrows deep inside the box to find smarter ways to deliver return on investment for clients and deeper, more compelling interactive brand strategies. The agency even thanks visitors to the site for spending time with its brand, using a counter showing the number of minutes they've spent with it; t:m invites visitors to contact it to learn more about turning that time into revenue.

T:m's offbeat and original site details exactly what clients can expect from the agency: Online campaigns that "get you noticed"; the full gamut of customer relationship management services (acquisition, retention, lead generation, etc.); Web site strategy, design, and execution; database development and integration; and return on investment tracking and analysis. And t:m has what might be called a secret sauce: "Our writers and designers think like directors," as the agency's site puts it.

The agency can afford to boast a little: Its top five clients include American Airlines' aa.com, insurance provider Nationwide, Verizon's Superpages.com, Texas Tourism's traveltex.com, and ExxonMobil. With nearly $400 million in media billings and $37 million in interactive media billings (both self-reported), the agency racked up an impressive awards cache in 2005, including Addy awards for interactive media work on behalf of American Airlines with its "Water Balloon" campaign and for Subaru's and Nationwide's mini-sites. The agency counts IgoUgo.com, Fossil, and Sanijet among new clients and recently scored expanded responsibilities from American and Nationwide.

While the agency's ease with creative strategy draws on the legacy of its highly respected Interpublic Group of Cos.' sibling, Temerlin McClain, t:m interactive's strategic prowess derives from its management. James Hering is t:m's executive vice president and director of interactive marketing. Having started the agency more than a decade ago, he was a vocal adherent of interactive best practices and standards before the Web became cool. Under Hering's leadership, American saw its Web site, aa.com, evolve into the most successful airline site in the world.

Hering's partners in crime are John Rich, vice president and interactive creative director, and Dave Russell, director of new media. Rich has more than 16 years of award-winning integrated advertising experience under his belt, having worked with Ford Motor Co., 3M, Perrier, ExxonMobil, and American Airlines. Russell worked on technology brands at Euro RSCG DSW and did a stint with Wieden + Kennedy.

"To my knowledge, James is the first 'interactive' media exec who has taken the reigns of all media in an integrated fashion," notes Joseph Jaffe, president and founder of creative consultancy Jaffe, LLC. "I applaud t:m's vision in making this bold move."

They Love To Fly

Longtime client American Airlines continues flying high with t:m interactive. In 2005, the "We Know Why You Fly" (www.whyyoufly.com) series of campaigns took center stage. Key among a host of initiatives was the American Airlines "aa.com Direct Channel Booking" effort, which targeted business and leisure travelers with the goal of generating more online bookings and inviting consumers to do more on aa.com. The year-long campaign ran on 16 travel-related sites and logged more than 340 million impressions using a variety of Flash-enabled ad units, text links, search, special travel "deals," and customized travel modules on major portals to drive awareness and bookings.

The campaign depicted unique reasons why people fly -- including zany ones, like spectating at lawn mower races. The online video ad "Lawnmower" tells consumers that American offers "fares so low, you can fly just to see it with your own eyes." The ad showed footage from lawn mower races accompanied by fast banjo music that virtually took viewers to the race.

Even more emotionally resonant, and every bit as powerful as Johnson & Johnson's "Having a baby changes everything" TV ads, the online video ad "Grandpa" shows nostalgic 1960s-'70s-era footage of a grandfather blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, surrounded by pin-curled little girls and other family members. The copy: "Now you can fly just to breathe a little life into the party."

"T:m took what would have been a static and even patronizing advertising campaign, 'We know why you fly,' and turned it into something that was authentic, warm, and engaging," Jaffe notes. "Instead of an airline telling us why we fly, why not let us tell them? It's a novel idea," Jaffe adds.

Along with streaming video, t:m created a viral "Why you fly" e-mail postcard through which consumers could upload a photo and share with friends. In addition, visitors could create and replay Flash-enabled movies, view other video clips, or book flights. The agency used PointRoll's "TomBoy" ad unit to create 12 different video ad executions and two different Flash executions. In all, t:m created 56 ad units in various sizes for the campaign. T:m also helped launch AA's "Power Lunch Series" of Webcasts and podcasts which offers helpful tips from a life coach.

In 2005, t:m also created a "Fare Finder" ad module for AA.com that eliminated steps in the customer booking process by placing the key search fields for AA's booking engine right inside the ad unit. A customer can enter flight information within the ad unit and the ad will "call" aa.com and return fare search results. The agency created 11 different executions using this custom technology in various sizes for a total of 106 ad units.

The agency reports that as of May 15, 2005, the campaign generated $58,992,612 in post-click revenue -- more than 31 times the cost. More than 6 million people were sent to aa.com on a direct click from the ad units. The agency estimates that more than 2.3 million "cost-saving" activities were performed on aa.com, and 46,310 new AAdvantage memberships generated.

The multifaceted site also supported a promotion that encouraged consumers to submit stories, pictures, or videos that captured the essence of why they fly. It also included destination content and an advergame. Through April, more than 95 million impressions were served with an average click-through rate of 0.30 percent, according to t:m, which reports that there were a total of 152,391 bookings after customers experienced the campaign. Interestingly, 40 percent of the post-impression bookings occurred within one hour after viewing the ad. Total revenue for the campaign to date is $60,499,227. Since launching last September, Whyyoufly.com has had over 9.1 million page views. The average length of visits is 2 minutes, 47 seconds, while 15,540 people have forwarded to a friend, and 22,250 have played or downloaded the "Match Me" game.

The agency reports that 166,806 people were sent to aa.com on a direct click from the ad units, with an overall campaign click-through rate of 0.44 percent. The campaign generated $16,757,767 in revenue (post-click and post-impression).

Rob Britton, managing director, brand development and advertising for American Airlines, calls t:m "a superb partner on a number of levels. They are always pushing us to consider new ideas and approaches, without being heavy-handed. They always provide post-campaign reports full of relevant measures and qualitative assessment. Perhaps best of all, they work hand-in-glove with tm Advertising, our agency of record for more than two decades, to deliver truly integrated work."

Super Sweepstakes for Superpages.com

For Verizon's SuperPages.com, t:m launched a seven-week holiday promotion late last year to encourage consumers to use key site features for holiday planning and shopping. The sweepstakes rewarded consumers for searching SuperPages.com for local businesses or holiday gifts, writing a review of a business, downloading coupons, searching the circulars, downloading the SuperPages.com toolbar, or referring a friend to the promotion.

The "we know the holidays around here" ad campaign was created by tm Advertising and included the chance to win more than $100,000 in cash and prizes. The holiday effort was part of SuperPages' "we know around here" campaign, which t:m conceived as an integrated marketing program with national online media, along with radio, out-of-home, and guerrilla stunts deployed in the New York and Dallas markets. The goal was to generate traffic and increase searches on Superpages.com, as well as build brand awareness and preference for the site. Ads also touted local information at Superpages.com like "where to find a good eye doctor around here." The Flash-enabled ad units allowed consumers the ability to perform a search directly within the ad, which linked to the appropriate listing on Superpages.com. The creative portfolio included more than 14 different concepts for a total of 52 ad executions across four site networks and five sites. The campaign's entire run was expected to net 48,054,282 impressions. As of late last year, more than 6.3 million activities were driven on Superpages.com as a result of the advertising, including 3,324,551 searches.

We're on Your Side

For Nationwide's "Life Comes At You Fast" campaign, t:m mounted 30 real videos of life coming at people very quickly. Some are funny, some are weird, but all are meant to keep visitors coming back to see what's next. The program added a new video each day for 30 days, with Nationwide's signature blue frame hidden in five of the videos. Visitors who chose all five videos were invited to enter a contest to win one of three moviemaking kits with an iMac G5 and Sony digital video camera.

The agency's media plan targeted more than 30 markets, using a mix of portals and search to boost brand awareness among Nationwide's target audience. T:m partnered with the AvantGo network to implement wireless media placements. The campaign generated 100 million impressions across nearly two dozen sites in the media plan with an average click-through rate of 0.32 percent, delivering well over 300,000 visitors to LifeComesAtYouFast.com, according to t:m. The campaign's promotional component ended last July, with the sweepstakes having boosted the average site visit to nearly 5 minutes. The campaign has generated nearly half a million activities on LifeComesAtYouFast.com and Nationwide.com.

Pumpin' Gas

For ExxonMobil, t:m used bridge pages, Flash, and PointRoll units to target business and opinion leaders on global energy issues. T:m used 24-hour home page roadblocks and created an interactive Energy Demand map to illustrate energy challenges.

For Texas Tourism, t:m deployed a variety of Flash ad units, text links, search, and rich media ad formats to enable consumers to order the Texas State Travel Guide directly from the ad. The agency's nine-month push ran on 20 Web sites and portals and racked up nearly 400 million impressions. The agency reports that as of April 30, 2005, there were 509,000 visits to TravelTex.com as a result of direct clicks from within the ad units, and 17,148 travel guides were ordered. For fiscal 2005, the goal was 1.5 million guides and as of April, 2.56 million guides had been ordered, exceeding the goal by 60 percent.

It seems that t:m interactive's star is shining big and bright deep in the heart of Texas.