Coca-Cola taps No|inc for Web campaigns.
Robert Terry, Baltimore Business Journal 10.05.03
The market for Web design firms is changing, but that doesn't mean creativity is taking a back seat to systems integration and technical services.
Just ask Baltimore's No|inc LLC, a 3-year-old company launched by four ex-employees of seminal Baltimore Web shop GR8. Digital strategy is as much a part of No|inc's offerings to clients as design work and back-end technical development. And the Coca-Cola Co. is one client coming to No/inc for advice.
Brought together by Coca-Cola's New York-based advertising firm, Berlin Cameron/Red Cell, No|inc (www.noinc. com) has been working with the Atlanta-based soft drink manufacturer and its marketing partners over the last few months on ideas to build interactive campaigns.
None of the ideas have made it to production yet, says No/inc partner Mark Maloney. But the firm has logged valuable face time with Coca-Cola decision-makers on ways to reach new consumers, particularly young ones who are technologically savvy, and may be developing a thirst for Pepsi products.
"We look at it as how can we create the best possible online experience" using things such as messaging tools and peer-to-peer technology, Maloney said.
"Let's not stick some banner ads in their faces, let's give them some tools so they can hang out together, under the Coke banner."
No|inc, on track to book $750,000 in revenues this year, has been able to build on the experience with other clients.
One, a worldwide pharmaceutical leader, was looking for interactive campaign ideas from Berlin Cameron on ways to reach its loyal female customers. The hook: Play on the notion that men stubbornly refuse to see doctors.
No|inc came back with "Cyber Nag," a concept perhaps short on political correctness but long on humor and creativity. Women could upload photos and text of themselves and create customized advertisements stored on a company's server.
When hubby, not able to play golf because of a bad back, surfs to a favorite Website featuring advertising for that company, a cookie could send a pop-up ad featuring not a stock photo of an elderly couple with a lame back pain message but his wife telling him to see a doctor.
Berlin is pursuing other uses for the concept, Maloney said.
Regardless of whether these techniques fly in corporate boardrooms, the bigger point is that businesses are still looking for creative ways to use the Internet to market themselves -- and the shakeout among Web strategy and design shops may be ending, according to Maloney.
"There's absolutely no doubt," he said. "The people who are still around are the ones who should be around."