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Is search set for an ad agency invasion?

Source: NMA magazine | Published: 28 September 2006

Creative agency VCCP's announcement last week of the launch of its own dedicated search marketing division raises questions about how seriously agencies are starting to treat search.

VCCP, bought last year for £30m by Lord Bell of Belgravia's Chime Communications, is well known for its creative ad campaigns for clients like O2, Coca-Cola and Dyson. Its move into the search sector has surprised many. Does this herald a merging of the creative, branding-focused hot-shop agency world with the prosaic results-driven world of search?

VCCPsearch, under the direction of former Quartz Interactive MD Paul Mead, is being officially unveiled this week at the Ad:tech trade show. The division will provide search to all 27 Chime agencies in addition to targeting new business. It will provide a full search marketing service with specialist teams for natural search, pay-per-click, consultancy and search marketing technology.

Mead believes that search offers one of the most effective methods of supporting brand ideas. VCCPsearch will work closely with VCCPdigital, the group's creative digital design hub, and Pure Media, Chime's media planning/buying agency, to underpin their work with search.

"From a creative view point, search is now a crucial feature of the media marketing mix," says Tom Hopkins, MD of VCCPdigital. "The fact we have an in-house company means we don't have to outsource it and can fully integrate it into our work."

One of the key reasons why creative agencies have traditionally avoided getting involved in search is the stigma that it's dull, generic and purely geared towards revenue. The proliferation of specialist search companies has also discouraged dabbling in the sector. So will other creative agencies now follow VCCP's lead?

Martin Bailie, planning director at Glue London, says that the move is a logical one for VCCP, considering its other interests, and it shows that there's a greater realisation among creative agencies of just how big a role search can play. "It's a sensible addition, despite the fact that the sector is not considered intellectually stimulating by creative standards," says Bailie. "I'm slightly sceptical about the move, though, as it seems designed primarily to serve the group's PR business. As to whether Glue would look at doing something similar, we always look to keep our options open."

Rob Forshaw, MD of Grand Union, believes that this shift is a daring one for VCCP because search is such a competitive field. But it isn't one that many creative agencies would copy. "This is a brave, if unnatural, step for a creative agency to take, as for all the revenue that search generates, it's limited creatively speaking," he says. "The move is potentially very lucrative, although I'd have thought it was too grubby for VCCP to get into."

Asked if Grand Union would consider moving into search, Forshaw is doubtful. Offering search properly as a standalone service would need a huge team and the financial muscle to compete with dedicated standalone agencies, he says. For Grand Union, search would only have a place as part of a broader online offering.

Graham Darracott, strategic partner at Graphico, is enthusiastic about the importance of search, especially when an agency has ambitions to offer a full service, although this importance varies depending on the brand it's being used with. "Search is absolutely something we're looking to get further involved in, and it falls under the remit of our current media division," he says. "It's an absolute must for some markets, like retail. While purely creative agencies can dismiss it, digital agencies absolutely have to have search marketing as part of their online media strategy. It's vital."

However, Matt Gorzowski, MD of M&C Saatchi digital agency Play, is clear in his view that creative agencies should be distinct from search. Although he understands VCCP's move from a business point of view, search isn't something Play is interested in at present. "VCCP is interesting because of its position; it can put a lot of money into search, which is the hot thing right now," he says. "From our perspective, creative and search are the equivalent of church and state: there's a natural separation. Creative is about actively engaging users who may have no initial interest in the brand, while search is algorithmic and is about catering to the user's instant need."

Team Building

With no established online media arm and a lack of name recognition in the sector, VCCP's entry into search is a bold one. However, the big test for the agency, at least in the eyes of the search industry, will be just how successful it is at attracting and building a roster of clients in what is an already viciously competitive sector.

One of the key issues faced by any new search company is the need to build and have in place a large, skilled team to manage its brands.

"We've seen creative agencies moving into search for a while now, but they're not seen as a huge threat to established search marketing agencies," says Lyndsey Menzies, MD of Bigmouthmedia. "To run a major organic search campaign you need trained copywriters, data analysts, optimisers and experienced strategists to deal with heavyweight ad campaigns. If you just want to run a simple paid search campaign, it's very easy, but anything more complex needs skilled people, and they're difficult to get at the moment."

With a launch team of five, VCCPsearch is looking to recruit extensively and aims to have a search team of 10 to 15 people within the next few months. Mead is ambitious when he considers the division's future plans and states that he's looking to compete with big search players like Bigmouth, which has a team of 60. A lot will depend on how much growth the division has shown by the end of 2007, and its getting the balance between people and projects right.

Steve Vranakis, creative director of VCCPonline, believes VCCPsearch can hold its own with the dedicated search agencies. "There's room for agencies like Bigmouth, as that level of specialisation is rare," he says. "In effect, we're pre-empting our clients' needs, as search isn't something that they've demanded but it's something we believe they will benefit from."

Mead believes that the addition of search to VCCP will enhance the work that its creative team is engaged in, and make for a more powerful overall campaign. "Creativity is a great thing, but the main drive behind any campaign is to sell more and raise brand awareness," he says. "Paid search is measurable and its effectiveness can be gauged. PR, TV, radio, press or outdoor will connect clients with their target audience and this in turn will generate search queries. An effective search marketing campaign completes this loop."

The arrival of agencies like VCCP onto the search scene is an indication of just how important search is to brand marketing. Earlier predictions of consolidation appear to have been replaced by the realism of coexistence, at least for now.

Adding search to the PR armoury

The initial focus for VCCPsearch is likely to be in PR, as Chime's divisions include heavyweight PR agencies like Bell Pottinger and Harvard, which would give the agency a solid start in this market. PR seems to be an obvious area for search to move further into and Paul Mead, head of VCCPsearch, has pointed out that search could be especially useful in a situation of crisis management (NMA 21.09.06).

Lyndsey Menzies, MD of search agency Bigmouthmedia, agrees that PR is a likely avenue for VCCPsearch, as it has yet to fully embrace search. "The search industry is starting to wake up to the power of PR and we have a team dedicated to this," she says. "That VCCP is looking at this market is only natural, and it'll do well in it. By making search an integral part of PR, agencies can create a real buzz around brands online. We've done PR work with BA, Hilton and Barclays stressing the importance of distribution of material and brand exposure online."

The central tenet of online PR is to secure a brand in newsworthy circles on the internet, in addition to building relationships with the most relevant online communities.

Bigmouth's online PR work consists primarily of two tactics: expert articles and online press releases.

Mead believes that search can go even further with regards to PR, however, and gave the example in last week's NMA of a situation in which a negative news story emerges about a food or drink brand's contents, and within two hours paid search could see the brand saturate the main search engines, driving users to a site showing its ingredients.

Other markets like travel, retail and finance also lend themselves easily to search marketing, and there appear to be gaps here to be filled.

"There are big brands that haven't previously explored online marketing but which are starting to ask what search can do for them," says Mead. "Unexplored markets like fashion and the automotive sector, as well as PR, aren't saturated and the biggest challenge right now is educating and communicating just how important search is to clients. Search changes the perception of brands in users' eyes. If we can demystify the statistics and jargon around it, more brands will embrace it."

Giles Reece-Jones, director of Ogilvy Interactive, agrees that there are some markets that have yet to fully take advantage of search, but adds that equally there are sectors which are saturated. "Search in certain sectors is flattening out and seeing lower levels of growth," he says. "PR is a good fit and these agencies will have to enter the digital sphere just in order to compete, because that's where their customers are."

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