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Marketing's New Media Agency of the Year is nothing if not focused.

When it opened for business in January 2000, its mission was to work for

the world's ten biggest brands. It's not there yet, but the

clearly-stated goal has enabled the company to concentrate on winning

commissions from global blue-chip brands.

In the two years since launch, Zentropy has secured business from

Microsoft, Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola and General Motors, among several

other household names. It has also become the only retained online

agency for the UK for Compaq.

As a result of business wins during 2001, the company has increased its

headcount by 16% since the end of 2000, bucking the trend of

redundancies in the sector. It has done so, it says, by hiring people

only when it has work for them that they will enjoy and that will create

value for its clients.

The company is proud of the fact that, during 2001, its technology

director was voted "most effective person to work with" by Compaq, while

its director of usability was voted the "most useful" person during the

launch of a major new financial planning service for AMP.

"The bottom line for us on any project is to ask what value our clients

will get from it," says Zentropy's new business director Tim

Dempsey.

Outstanding commissions during 2001 include the Quicky Sticky project

for Nestle beverage brand, Nesquik, and the launch of Birds Eye Wall's

enjoy! range of minimal-preparation fresh-tasting meals.

Innovative techniques

For Nesquik, the agency's brief was to use innovative techniques

designed to appeal to digitally-literate children, and to build a

consistent brand experience across all European markets. The objective

was to make the brand fun and relevant to the target audience and

enhance the perception of Nesquik as everyday fun for children. As part

of the project, it was also required to create a "digital bunny"

character that could be used as a brand icon in other channels.

The site, using Flash 5 and XML technology, includes collectable

interactive stickers to place in an animated sticker album, and a "Build

a treehouse" game in which Quicky the bunny helps children to build and

customise a treehouse, with no less than 3.7 billion personalisation

options. While the results of the campaign are confidential for

commercial reasons, statistics shown to Marketing suggest an

overwhelming success.

For enjoy!, Zentropy's interactive campaign had to extend awareness of

the brand among the cash-rich, time-poor target audience. It achieved

such success that it is now used internally within Unilever as an

example of best practice, and as a tool to encourage the company's brand

managers to invest in new media.

The campaign was divided into tease and reveal stages. The teaser stage

used banners, pop-ups, DHTML overts and a mystery micro-site

(www.why5thofFebruary.co.uk).

This aimed to encourage con-sumers to visit the actual web site

(www.enjoygoodfood.co.uk).

Once again, confidential statistics shown to Marketing reveal the

success of the campaign.

For 2002, the agency says it will remain focused on doing good work and

winning business from global brands. "We want to build on the

foundations of what we have achieved so far and continue to do great

work," says Dempsey.

MODEM MEDIA

Modem Media says it had to overcome "resentment and mistrust" from

clients that feel they have been "had over by the big consultancies", in

order to win new business in 2001. It tackled these hurdles, it says, by

the use of case studies demonstrating its abilities. It has been helped

too, says new business director Bill Roberts, by the company's

insistence on the importance of return on investment (ROI).

"ROI has been a big part of our presentation for four or five years,"

says Roberts. "We've always been a data- and analytic-centred company,

so test and measurement have long been at the core of how we think."

Another factor in Modem's success, says Robson, is that it has always

had a deep focus on its existing clients, using its work for one

business unit within conglomerates such as GM or IBM as a springboard to

seek new contracts from other divisions within the same company.

The company won a number of new clients this year, and its projects

included work on Persil Capsules and Lynx Phoenix for Unilever.

Modem has not been immune to the new media downturn, suffering what

Robson describes as a "modest scaleback" of around 15% of staff. The

company expects a flat first half of 2002 before things pick up in

Q3.

OGILVYINTERACTIVE

"2001 has been a tough year, in which we went from mega-growth to a very

difficult time," admits Tim Carrigan, head of OgilvyInteractive.

Nevertheless, the agency is projecting a 15% year-on-year revenue

increase of £8,239,000 to year-end 2001, compared with £7,162,000 the previous year.

This is due both to the delivery of large projects for existing clients,

including American Express, IBM and Nestle's Felix, as well as new

business wins from Consignia, BT and Blue Square. These new clients have

brought in £1,150,00, or 14%, of the company's 2001 revenue.

During the year, Ogilvy also developed one of the first downloadable

games for PDAs, used as a marketing tool for Wimbledon 2001.

While the agency has reduced headcount, from 135 at the start of the

year, to around 105 now, Carrigan says it has avoided the worst of the

sector's problems due to its lack of exposure to dotcom pureplays, and

because its blue-chip clients still recognise the importance to their

business of being online.

It has been helped too, by strong creative output, and by a "results"

culture. Carrigan says the agency is playing a watching game. He says

the second half of the year has been better than the first, but

concedes: "It's too early to say that it (the downturn) is over

yet."

OUTRIDER

Outrider chairman Rob Norman admits that 2001 threw up problems for the

company as "projects from dotcoms with apparently decent funding and

apparently serious shareholders simply disappeared". But the agency

survived the dotcom fallout, thanks largely to successful media planning

and buying projects for the online arms of "old economy" clients such as

Ladbrokes, Nationwide and Direct Line.

The agency managed to retain all its existing clients in 2001, and added

several new ones, including Canon, Priceline and Ladbrokes. Norman

attributes the agency's success in doing so to a combination of

creative, media and research. He also cites the development of tools

such as Bikini, a proprietary tool that allows Outrider planners to

calculate reach and frequency of online plans. Another tool is the

agency's 'CDS', a robust permission-marketing system that plans,

manages, deploys and tracks clients' e-mail and SMS marketing

campaigns.

Norman says the agency is feeling "corporately fit" going into 2002. "We

have a good process, developed round our own resources," he adds. "A lot

of people don't like seeing us on the pitch list."

TOP 20 NEW MEDIA AGENCIES

Rank Agency New media New media New media % chg

turnover turnover

(%) 2000 (pounds) 1999 (pounds)

1 Modem Media 100 15,000,000 7,000,000 114

2 Wheel 95 14,987,200 8,931,900 68

3 IS Solutions 100 12,218,000 11,818,000 3

4 Outrider 100 12,000,000 6,000,000 100

5 Quidnunc 100 11,809,303 6,703,450 76

6 Oyster Partners 100 10,481,000 4,112,000 155

7 Incepta Online 100 10,375,000 5,063,000 105

8 Traffic Proximity 100 8,700,000 2,500,000 248

9 Entranet 100 8,330,000 3,059,000 172

10 Hyperlink

Interactive 100 8,018,000 4,274,000 88

11 PixelPark 100 7,759,200 2,100,000 269

12 OgilvyInteractive 100 7,700,000 4,405,000 75

13 Euro RSCG Circle 100 7,604,000 3,215,000 137

14 Organic 100 7,380,000 2,960,000 149

15 Victoria Real 100 6,662,291 1,485,967 348

16 Foresight (Europe) 60 6,600,000 4,860,000 36

17 Rufus Leonard 80 6,480,000 5,097,974 27

18 Uovo 100 5,900,000 3,200,000 84

19 Syzygy UK 100 5,800,000 3,300,000 76

20 Zentropy Partners 100 5,000,000 n/a n/a

Source: Marketing League Tables

HYPERLINK INTERACTIVE

The sale of Hyperlink Interactive to Cable & Wireless in December 2000

brought the agency financial stability, as well as new business.

Quite simply, says managing partner David Barker, the association with

the FTSE Top 20 cable operator has opened doors that might otherwise

have remained closed to the agency, and during 2001, Hyperlink has

picked up new commissions from Halifax, B&Q, Norwich Union, and many

more.

"We have 35 active customers, so we are much less open to market

movements," says Barker. "Margins are tighter, but we are seeing lots of

new business. We met the right people at the right time."

ORGANIC

Like many new media agencies, Organic found itself having to trim costs

and become much more proactive in 2001. The company reduced its

headcount and began pitching for business much more aggressively in

February, and those tough decisions, says media director Nick Sparey,

are now beginning to bear fruit.

"As a company, we're much more streamlined," he says. "Everyone is

client-facing and revenue-generating, and on the new business front,

things have picked up in the last couple of months."

Major new projects in 2001 have come from Unified, which commissioned a

£500,000 new site, and existing clients such as BT. Organic built

the original BT.com site, and this year, created a successful viral

campaign for the company's free network answering service, BT Answer

1571. This used a customisable flash animation to draw prospects to a

microsite, from where they could link to an information and sign-up

section of the main BT site.

While 2001 revenue through Q3 was down 28% on 2000 at £2,606,340,

the company still enjoyed a profitable third quarter, and is

anticipating break-even by the year end. It has also strengthened its

affiliations with digital companies such as IBM, Vignette and

Broadvision, in a move designed to reinforce its multi-platform

technical capabilities.

RUFUS LEONARD

After suffering what it describes as "a mid-year wobble", which saw

financial services clients pulling planned projects, Rufus Leonard

business development director Louise Jordan says the company raised its

game. Everyone in the company is now focused on every pitch and every

account, she says.

Results for October were excellent, she adds, and the company also

expects to at least break even in November and December.

The year has been typified by smaller projects for clients such as

Shopsmart and Tower Hamlets, but there have been some bigger ones too.

These include the creation of a European extranet for Shell Chemicals'

SOS (Simple Olefins Solutions), which took the Marketing Connections

award for 'Best use of the Internet for b2b Communications'.

The extranet enables customers to buy Olefins chemicals online. The

company also picked up a £350,000 commission from DaimlerChrysler

to create an e-commerce-enabled web site for its Smart car. This is also

in the running for a number of awards.

Five client wins during 2001 helped the company to increase turnover in

the 12 months to April 30 2001, to £6,642,000, up from £5,688,000 in the previous 12 months. Margins were squeezed, however,

with profits falling from £1,166,000 in 2000, to £393,000 in

2001.