Pushing its digital marketing clients content further, ad agency Ogilvy & Mather has formed an interactive unit, Advanced Video Practice.
Advance Video Practice will
focus on the creation of strategic content, video search engine optimization and the production/ distribution of video across multiple digital platforms and measurement. It will get help from
executives at the agency's Neo@Ogilvy search practice and OgilvyEntertainment.
Oglivy says the unit will take "video engagement beyond the 'viral' view.'" The agency will used the division to
target measurable engagements that place viewers directly into the sales funnel.
To date, it has done some interactive video work for IBM, Nestle, DuPont and other clients -- using YouTube in
particular as a marketing channel.
The business will be headed up by Robert John Davis, who has been with Ogilvy since 2008. Previously, he has held senior positions at Rainbow Media's cable
network sites and served as MTV Networks' first executive producer of convergence.
Brandon Berger, chief digital officer for Ogilvy, says: "Our practice is unique in that we are using the medium
to drive business, not just collect views." He touted the success the agency had in "developing experiences that optimize search results, drive click-through to Web sites or purchase, and impact sales
across both B2B and consumer brands."
Noting the new division's distinctive mission, Davis said the strategy is built on the idea that "views will be maximized if you optimize the multiple forms
of search first ... Instead of optimizing content after it is produced, as is common for Web sites, we optimize our clients' work from the very start before a frame of video is shot."
Earlier
this year at the MIP-TV conference in Cannes, France, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide CEO Miles Young, in talking about brands and entertainment, said: "I'd rather use the term 'branded content' to decide
what we do. .. It much more precisely defines the needs of a contemporary brand's ecosystem.
"In a world where meaning is deficient," he added, "brands make meaning." He called the video
practice a "new approach to content creation."