Founded in 1991 as Mezzina Brown, Agent16 is an independent advertising agency known for non-traditional marketing. Our approach is to combine cultural insights with leveragable brand assets to create growth strategies. We like to call this “Culture Branding.”
Exciting things always seem to be happening here at the agency. And so it’s our pleasure to highlight here some of the more notable Agent16 news of recent months:
June 2010Change the Game
Cultural Insight: Tequila is a rapidly growing spirits category and with the advent of silver consumption has morphed into a “tequila-vodka” entity.
Brand Asset: 1800, with its iconic masculine bottle and authentic-tasting product line featuring its silver and 100-proof select silver products is the world’s finest tequila.
Growth Strategy: 1800 is the authentically masculine product that’s just right for today’s non-pretentious tequila drinkers.
What’s Your O-Face?
Cultural Insight: The imported vodka market had become increasingly cluttered and positioned as an exclusive club, limited to brands featuring elaborate and pretentious back stories.
Brand Asset: Three-O Vodka comes in fifteen surprisingly exhilarating flavors such as root beer, cherry and grape.
Growth Strategy: The Three-O “What’s Your O-Face?” campaign took ownership of the unexplored fun portion of the imported vodka landscape.
KAMEHAMEHA!
Cultural Insight: The biggest challenge in creating communication in the gaming world is simply not to piss-off legions of hardcore fans.
Brand Asset: When it came time to create TV spots for Atari’s wildly popular title, DBZ, we knew we had to delve deep to find the one truth all the fans would relate to. It was the trademark battle cry of the title’s hero, Goku: KAMEHAMEHA!
Growth Strategy: By bringing the empowerment of “KAMEHAMEHA! to real word scenarios, we created a series of commercials that were relevant to gamers. In fact, hundreds of thousands of fans online responded with a resounding “LMAO!!”
Culture Branding is a growth strategy that embraces the consumer and builds brand power. Our approach is simple. We explore the target’s culture, uncover the brand’s unique assets, and combine the learning to forge a cohesive growth strategy. Brand content and messaging become more relevant as the brand is driven deep into the pop culture.
We don’t start trends. We capitalize on brand opportunities within the culture.
Agent16 engages each new client by asking:
Where is the culture going? Where is the brand opportunity? How do we grab it… fast
Cultivating Culture
Any agency that brings brands and pop culture together needs to be out there in the culturescape - exploring, playing, and creating. That’s why we’ve always encouraged our staff’s personal projects both inside and outside our agency’s walls. And that’s why we also like to celebrate some intriguing efforts here in our Tumblr space:
Jellio (Chris Lenox, Creative Director)
A world of fun childhood memories brought back as unique home furnishings.
Hot Wheels, Nerf Balls, Spyrograph, View Masters… Remember any of those? Well, that’s the idea behind Jellio. Think of all those times that you Jellio is about placing a few memories in your home, in a very unique way.
Draw Tippy (Dave Pachence, Creative Director)
Poster boy for the DIY-musician, Dave locked himself away in his NYC loft with a little gear and a lot of determination. A year later, he emerged with a beard and thirteen completed songs which he wrote, sang, performed, arranged and recorded himself. In no time at all the ultra-catchy, mega-hooky tunes started popping up everywhere, including the on-air soundtracks of MTV series like “The Real World.”
The Brazen Breed
Cultural Insight: In a nightlife scene saturated with trendy, designer vodka brands, BULLDOG needed to break through the clutter and overcome the stigma that gin is a drink for old, stodgy consumers.
Brand Asset: Inspired by the name, BULLDOG, and its unique array of exotic botanicals, we created an iconic bottle, complete with spiked glass collar, that has come to epitomize this sexy, super premium newcomer.
Growth Strategy: Praised for its unmistakable design, BULLDOG not only breaks through the clutter of bottles behind the bar, it is succeeding in attracting a new generation of gin drinkers while shattering any preconceived notions of how gin is supposed to behave.
Unleash Your Inner Monster
Cultural Insight: While ATARI practically created “gaming,” the Wii platform has single handedly changed the face of gaming as we know it. A title with the recognition such as Godzilla, if leveraged correctly, could be the perfect foray Atari needed to enter this new era.
Brand Asset: The Wii allows gamers to be apart of the action. In Godzilla: Unleashed, gamers can fight and destroy by actually being one of 23 monsters in the game. Who wouldn’t want the chance to become a monster?
Growth Strategy: We brought the idea of “Unleashing Your Inner Monster” to life by juxtaposing action from the game with the actions of a multi-users actually playing the game. The outcome was a high-energy romp that not only showcased the game-play, but appealed to both Wii aficionados and longtime Godzilla fans alike.
Join New York’s Brightest
Cultural Insight: In the battle to hire the best public school teachers, New York City was losing ground to wealthier school systems in Westchester and Nassau counties.
Brand Asset: New York City could leverage its prestige by elevating NYC teachers to the same heroic status as the NYC police and firemen.
Growth Strategy: Mayor Bloomberg himself introduced our campaign idea in a press conference: Join New York’s Brightest: Teach NYC. We convinced a proud graduate of NYC public schools, Hollywood director Joel Schumacher, to donate his time and talent to telling the story of the City’s heroes. Result? With the Ad Council on board and a powerful new web site, we helped break all records for qualified applications to the New York City public school system.
Advertising
Application Development
Branded Content
Creative Development
Digital Marketing
Direct Marketing
Event/Experiential Marketing
Social Media
Retail Merchandising
Sales Promotion
Strategic Planning
Website Design
Keep the Fire Burning
Cultural Insight: If you want a viral email to gain momentum, it must be worth sending.
Brand Asset: To drive traffic to their website, ATARI wanted to create a promotion based around the revolutionary “fire technology” in their blockbuster title, Alone in the Dark.
Growth Strategy: Creating a parody in the tone and manner of an STD awareness PSA, we capitalized on the “burning” aspect of fire to get get viewers to “give it to” the people they know and/or don’t know. It was a humorous slant that achieved the “viral” effect we were going for.
Over the years, we’ve put culture branding to work for all sorts of brands. Below you’ll find just a sampling of the past and present clients whose culture has become our business:
Alison Raffaele CosmeticsThe people of Agent16 have a single common will: to learn our clients’ businesses and grow them. Even if it means relearning our own business every day.
In a world of ever-widening media and technology options, our clients rely on us for ideas that transcend “commercial communications” - ideas that leverage the power of a brand’s cultural currency to engage and compel its customers.
We commit ourselves to excellence in the practice of the marketing disciplines, superiority in the level of service we provide our clients, and an appreciation of the thrill of creative collaboration.
Agent16
79 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10003
T: 212.367.3800
F: 212.367.3884
Looking for an agency? info@agent16.com
Want a job at Agent16? hires@agent16.com
Trying to sell us something? gojumpinalake@agent16.com
