Akqa aims for integrated digital services

"This is part of a broader strategy to addition our media and hunt practice," Tom Bedecarre, AKQA's CEO, told ClickZ News in an interview. "We have a close human relationship with our clients looking for an integrated approach to online marketing. It's helpful to have a bigger set of services and a bigger team to service our clients."

Scott John Addington Symonds, AKQA's executive director media manager, pointed out that a lot of clients have had two offprint groups: one handling customer-relationship direction and hunt initiatives and another devoted to stigmatization. However, the ad and selling landscape requires more integrating of the two. "It's time now, and it's not unique to us. It's born out of necessity," he said.

AKQA hired Scott Linzer as manager of hunt marketing. He'll work to tightly knit engineering from SearchRev, a company acquired by AKQA last year, into the ad agency's services, as well as develop search engine optimization services. Previously, Linzer was McCann Worldgroup's hunt marketing manager, working on the Microsoft and Nortel Networks business relationship.

"SearchRev will continue independently but [be] more focused on tool [and] engineering customers vs. AKQA hunt, which will support a higher level of scheme and integrated service in add-on to being powered by SearchRev technology," John Addington Symonds said in a follow up electronic mail.

As it adds services, AKQA has hired a full-time media executive director for New York City. And it's added two communicating planners to its U.K. Business office, in add-on to the before hire of a media executive director in the U.K.

The goal: to win more concern both on- and offline, rather than work entirely in the digital trenches, when it makes sense for AKQA and its clients.

"We have actually done a fair amount of offline media recently and do hope to continue to do so as we increasingly get full AOR [agency of record] status with new clients," Symonds explained. "Our Palm Treo campaign last year included substantial print, event, and OOH [out of home] media planning and buying."

AKQA isn't alone on its quest to add services and integrate them into their offerings. Carat USA and Carat Fusion last year merged to become a single all-media agencyand hired talent to expand its search engine expertise.

"There's a lot of upside in the broader search [market]," Bedecarre said, pointing to anticipated growth in mobile, local, and video search marketing.