• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 4, 2013

Last week, Starcom MediaVest Group unveiled a new unit called Zero Dot, a consulting operation for integrated branding, design, strategy and content creation.

The operation has been a work in progress for a couple of years, and is fully operational in North America where it is overseen by Jonathan Hoffman, SMG's president of Experience Design.

Now the agency plans to roll out Zero Dot globally -- a task that is being managed by John Sheehy, president of global operations at SMG.

Sheehy says the rollout strategy will be similar to the template used to expand content division LiquidThread, which has a presence in 22 markets throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. That rollout was largely dictated by client demand, he said.

When it comes to engaging consumers, said Sheehy, “there are a lot of moving parts.” Technology is driving continual change in consumer media behavior which in turn is transforming the way people interact with brands. It’s a challenge for brands to keep up and Zero Dot is designed to help them meet those challenges with cohesive, integrated strategies, he said. “Clients are still figuring out what the marketing integration process is,” he added.

Zero Dot has already delivered a number of executions for clients including Jim Beam and several P&G products including detergent brand Gain. Sheehy says the consultancy has an “AOR relationship” with P&G’s Cheer brand detergent. Currently, he said, it is “actively engaged with about half of the top 10 or 15 clients” on the SMG roster.

For P&G, Zero Dot worked with the Gain brand to launch what the shop said was a first-ever live television integration programmed by Facebook. The firm was asked to bring Gain's “scent equity” to life in an “unprecedented human experience.” Zero Dot utilized the television show The Voice and the Spanish language version of the program, La Voz, to integrate the experience into a special episode that was programmed in real-time by a Facebook application that gathered information and imagery about consumers and wove it into a custom video. Metrics on the television viewing audience revealed positive results around brand equity, live viewership and recall.

In a separate assignment for Jim Beam Zero Dot set up a faux poker party at a Chicago club featuring "celebrities" in the social media world. They filmed the video in real-time and participants took photos and uploaded them to social media such as Instagram during the party. Beam was able to measure the spread of reach of these photos and they determined they had essentially the same reach as a 30-second TV spot. Stories about the event were also published around the country. Beam is using the results of this work to shift perceptions within its own organization about the impact that newer media is having on marketing and advertising techniques.

Technology, said Sheehy, is supporting consumers in so many different ways from just a decade ago. “People shouldn’t notice the technology,” he said. “It should be indistinguishable from people’s experience.” And that’s what Zero Dot is helping clients accomplish, he said.