Interactive market strategist Fact
Communications and Internet technology and online community developer
Vanten have announced formation of a new Internet marketing, technology,
and solutions group and concomitant launch of an e-agency joint venture.
The Tokyo-based FlyingColor Group becomes the first independent,
specialist agency providing e-marketing and e-advertising services in
Japan.
“We’re on the edge of the revolution here,” declared Fact Communications
CEO Todd Newfield, who serves as chairman of the FlyingColor Group.
“There’s going to be a wave of new ‘dot coms’ coming into the Japanese
market… creating huge demand for effective and efficient online
advertising and marketing services.”
The FlyingColor Group will leverage the combined experience and expertise
of its three member firms in both interactive channels and traditional
media to offer what Newfield terms “Full Contact E-Marketing services —
a unique and hitherto unavailable package of comprehensive advertising
and marketing services across the e-space.”
Newfield added that the group will “work with the traditional marketing
agencies to implement the online services that they aren’t set up for,
and are struggling to provide. We believe our flexible, dynamic and
innovative approach will best meet client needs.”
The FlyingColor Group currently counts Leo Burnett Co., Hakuhodo Pro’s,
Ogilvy & Mather Japan, and McCann-Erickson among its agency clients.
Corporate clients include NTT, Zwei, Heineken Japan, Jardine Wines &
Spirits, and The London Assurance.
“We’re taking a new approach, trying to put our different strengths into
different companies, and then working together to leverage those
strengths,” confirmed Neil van Wouw, CEO of Vanten and the FlyingColor
Group’s chief information officer.
The one-year-old Vanten, said van Wouw, will continue to focus on
“building virtual communities or, as they’re sometimes called, vertical
portals.”
“As sites try to build traffic, they have to figure out how to increase
their ‘stickiness,’ create reasons for people to stay there and interact.
That’s a growing issue that enterprises aren’t really cognizant of right
now — but they will be.”
Fact Communications brings to the group long experience in online and
offline media integration and interactive advertising, promotions, and
relationship marketing, as well as proprietary real-time access tracking
systems for advertising and creative efficiency.
FlyingColor Interactive, the new joint venture firm, will help to “bring
it all together” by creating content, systems, and solutions strategies
for a wide range of electronic media — websites, e-commerce, enhanced
TV, wireless IP and e-mail — and proprietary technologies for
one-to-one content targeting and customization.
“It’s not just about websites anymore,” said Newfield. “Putting up a
website and branding through banner ads is no longer enough. You need an
integrated approach that uses each medium for what it’s best at.”
He said the aim of the FlyingColor Group is to “enable our clients to
take their business beyond the website and into new and exciting areas of
interactive communications to reach Asia’s increasingly sophisticated
consumers.”
While the initial focus will be on Japan, Newfield said the group has the
capacity to help its clients in other “Internet-developed” Asian markets,
such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea.
