• by July 1, 2004

Integrated marketing, 360-degree marketing, holistic marketing, and the so-called "contact."

All are well-worn buzz words for the stuff agencies like EarthQuake Media have been executing successfully for the last few years.

EarthQuake's a small shop, only 11 people, but it offers all kinds of services--media buying and planning, viral/email and mobile/wireless media, guerilla and event marketing, radio, print, TV and out-of-home, and all the customary analytics to boot. Through a close relationship with Glow Interactive, the agency offers creative services, Web design and development.

Robert Davidman, the company's chairman-CEO, says a common misperception is that EarthQuake is "just an online shop," which he quickly corrects. "We are an integrated media buying and planning shop. We're buying radio, outdoor, online, TV, print, wireless, everything." Clients include HBO, 1Up, a Ziff-Davis site for gamers, and The Film Movement, among others. A recent online campaign to promote HBO's hit Six Feet Under offered fans a phone number to dial to schedule a "viewing," hear a pitch for undertaking products, and receive a condolence.

The campaign for the popular HBO series which takes place in a funeral home, also included Web ads that promoted the call-in line on key online properties. A wireless element enabled cell phone users to forward the call-in number to friends for automatic connection to the Fischer & Diaz funeral home.

In speaking the other day with Davidman and Jes Santuro, the company's EVP, I learned about some cool new projects the agency is working on and got the sense that business is pretty good, even very good. When the topic turned to the recent spate of buying sprees in the interactive sector--(America Online and Advertising.com, aQuantive and SBI.Razorfish, Agency.com and Exile on Seventh, Return Path and NetCreations, to name a few)--I asked about whether EarthQuake might be an acquisition target. Davidman said he hadn't been approached and is interested in remaining as is, privately held.

Davidman was bullish on AOL's acquisition of Advertising.com but thinks "Advertising.com will be awakened to a much larger corporate mentality [than it is accustomed to]," adding that integrating the cultures and technologies are key hurdles. "[Advertising.com] is a complimentary business, and it legitimizes a lot of [AOL's] offerings. ... It puts them in the Web realm." Santuro agrees: "AOL will get hundreds of millions of impressions that are outside of its 'cage' and get ad tracking."