Principals: James Myers, Global Managing Director
Ownership: eg independent/other (please describe) Owned by The Economist Group and part of the Economist Media Business
Offices: London and New York
Revenue: Total agency revenue £7,138,000
Headcount: 55
"The last year has been a massively transitional year for our business." Says James Myers, group managing director at TVC Group. "We have invested heavily in non-traditional PR – content marketing, digital and social. Our most recent work shows that we are innovating – and ahead of trends."
It’s TVC’s work for elevator brand Otis that has seen the agency recognised in 2017’s PRWeek Awards – nominated for the Otis ‘Made to Move You’ campaign, in both the Best Use of Content and B2B Campaign categories. This campaign centres around an emotive brand film, which demonstrates TVC’s notable heritage in moving image. As TVC hits its 20th anniversary, Myers says: "our focus is on developing our skillsets to keep that central core but diversify as the comms world changes."
Central to that thinking is growing the digital side of the business and, as Creative Director, Greg Lappage, puts it: "pushing the definition and the rules of execution."
Over the past year TVC has taken more digital build in-house, developing apps and content hubs for its clients – experimenting with SnapChat and Instagram. The aim is "growing an agency that understands touch points and believes in building integrated brand experiences" according to Lappage.
This year has seen TVC orchestrate several notable brand launches, not least the October 2017 launch of new brand positioning for The Economist, launching http://thoughtthatcounts.economist.com/ as the new brand narrative for the brand’s media business. Myers describes this work as "a signal of the strong partnership between our publishing house parent and its agency."
October also sees the introduction of a multi-brand media centre and app for Bacardi Group, covering Grey Goose, Martini, Bacardi and Bombay Sapphire. TVC is now responsible for distributing content and new stories across all of these brands.
And in July TVC served as the lead comms agency for the launch of Jaguar E-PACE, the biggest launch in the brand’s history. This included a 30-minute live stream broadcast from London’s ExCeL which was viewed by 560,000 people. TVC’s film of the barrel roll reveal attracted 2.7 million views on Jaguar’s social channels, and 468 TV news broadcast pieces, including Sky News, CNN, CNBC and China’s biggest broadcaster CGTN. The launch reached 60 million people online.
Their work this year with the Motor Insurers’ Bureau enjoyed success. A targeted millennial campaign, ‘Gone In Seconds’, used a combination of fun and fear to drive home the serious message of car insurance. A bold film, a homage to the horror film genre, resonated with their target audience. The campaign was delivered across paid, earned, owned and shared channels, and was well-received both by the insurance industry and the target audience, leading to a strong rise in millennial car insurance.
In a one month period the film attracted 1.02 million+ views on YouTube and another 183,354 sessions on the GiS website.
Other notable accounts this year include Greene King Ales – for which TVC now looks after the entire portfolio. Aldemore Bank’s content marketing has been another area for growth.
Lappage says that "tighter budgets and faster turnaround times are challenges for all agencies, but less for us than most due to our heritage. The challenge is to constantly innovate and find new ways of telling our stories alongside smart distribution strategies."
"We see the challenges that face comms directors as opportunities," adds Myers. TVC is investing in building the strategy and planning teams in an effort to help clients identify where to spend their marketing and comms budget most effectively.
Sarah Harris, TVC’s group commercial and operations director, says that TVC's future lies in pushing towards data driven strategy "with our beating heart still in content creation – whatever form that takes.
With digital now a mainstay of the agency – with Myers saying as much time is spent planning where content is going to land as on crafting and capturing – in the next year the agency hopes to grow its international presence and build on its ever-growing diverse range of skills.
"We want to constantly surprise and excite our clients by bringing new ideas to briefs – we know it’s vital to keep experimenting and challenging ourselves and our clients."
TVC will continue to reinvent itself over the coming year as it embraces further innovation and new technology to propel its clients' campaigns to new levels of awareness.
