• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 3, 2007

AKQA has been named Current TV's agency for digital media buying and planning. With a million-dollar budget, the agency is tasked with reaching Current's elusive audience of affluent 18- to-34-year-olds with a brand-building campaign later this year.

"It's a real challenge," said Scott Symonds, executive media director at AKQA. "This will be one of our more granular and segmented campaigns with blogs, social media, anything related to community and content-sharing, and peer-to-peer networks."

Current TV's audience is interested in "brain-on engagement with all things cultural," according to Symonds. "We want to encourage viewers to join the conversation by submitting content via Current.tv, get it on TV and get paid for their work."

Current relies heavily on user-generated content, even running UGC ads.

London-based creative agency Heavenly is designing the look and feel of Current's forthcoming brand push, which is slated for the fourth quarter of this year.

Current TV and AKQA worked together last month on an awareness campaign, tied to the annual Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN, to that ran across music-oriented sites such as All Music, JamBase, MySpace Music and Pitchfork.

AKQA has recently done work for a host of blue-chip clients, including Coca-Cola, Nike, Visa, McDonald's, Smirnoff, and Unilever, among others. AKQA added Nike and Microsoft's MSN to its client roster last year, and also won global assignments from McDonald's, Smirnoff, and Johnnie Walker.

A recent deal with Dish Network boosted Current TV's domestic reach to more than 38 million subscribers.