Digital Agency Will Take Over Advertiser’s Creative Account

In another sign of the growing importance of digital advertising, an agency that specializes in interactive work is being named to handle the entire creative assignment for a marketer of financial services.

R/GA in New York, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, is to be named on Wednesday as the creative agency of record for Ameriprise Financial. The assignment to create campaigns for Ameriprise, with annual spending estimated at $30 million, had been handled for the past four years by Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, part of the Publicis Groupe.

Although R/GA “is known for its digital work,” said Kim M. Sharan, chief marketing officer at Ameriprise in Minneapolis, the agency “brought us some fresh creative ideas” that warranted naming R/GA to create campaigns in all forms of media.

Of course, the digital experience of R/GA factored into the decision, too. In reaching its desired audience of consumers who are, as Ms. Sharan put it, ages “40 to 65-ish,” advertising online “has been, and continues to be, an important area to beef up,” she said.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/digital-agency-taking-over-advertisers-entire-creative-account/