Close-Up: Live Issue - Gum hopes to make content chimera a reality

of planning and a lot of money into developing the agency's own branded
content and entertainment division, Gum.

Startlingly, Daley admits that the importance of branded content at the
moment is overstated. But he also thinks that it's going to play a
massive role in the future.

"Branded content is the advertising version of the whole dotcom wank,"
he says. "But it is going to happen, so agencies need to be ready. It's
still ethereal, but there is an awful lot of curiosity about it. It's an
historical inevitability - mass-market audiences are declining and we
have to find new ways to reach specific audiences."

The mission of Gum, in the agency's own description, is: "To help
clients achieve significant cut-through with leading-edge, young, urban
consumers in the context of ever-increasing media fragmentation, the
emergence of digital and wireless technologies and cynicism towards
traditional marketing." Phew. Its first clients are Canon, T-Mobile and
DeLaCour.

The feeling of a revolution in the making is palpable throughout the Gum
experience. Even the famous old Saatchis pub, the Pregnant Man, wasn't
spared the revolutionary sword. Its wooden panels and frothing ales have
made way for white walls, big speakers and projectors, which didn't go
down too well with some of the old guard.

"From a Saatchi & Saatchi point of view, what I've done here is fucking
sacrilege. Old Saatchis people were ringing and complaining about the
renovation," Daley says.

Development on Gum started in December last year and it was launched to
the agency this August. The official launch took place last Thursday
evening, with a party that almost lived up to the hype smothered
liberally over the venture by the Saatchis top brass.

Clients, staff and assorted minor celebrities, including Colin Jackson
and Chris Eubank, guzzled Champagne until the early hours in the
refurbished Pregnant Man.

The offices upstairs have been turned into a workspace called The
Sweatshop.

In here is a performance space with music mixing desks and photography
and live TV facilities, where the creatives behind the venture produce
most of Gum's work.

The infrastructure of the physical set-up could be in danger of straying
on to the wrong side of pretentious, but Daley is adamant that Gum's
offering ensures it is more than style over content.

Saatchis has spent a huge proportion of the set-up time trying to
achieve some point of differentiation between Gum and the ever-growing
number of branded content shops. Gum offers clients the chance to
promote their brands through a wide range of media, including music,
films, gaming, events and wireless technology.

The agency has forged deals with partners from across the globe to offer
clients a broad range of promotion for their brands in each medium.
These range from closer links with its sister Publicis agency Starcom,
to preferred partner deals with the production company Glassworks, the
events organiser Innovision, the American music producer Dallas Austin,
the ex-Radio 1 DJ Lisa I'Anson and the modelling agent Paulo Sella.

"It was a strange but rewarding experience to sit with Dallas Austin, an
American music super-producer, and talk about branding for Comet," Daley
says.

Saatchis has made the decision that for the first 18 months of its life,
Gum would only target young, urban consumers, and is looking for clients
who want to push their brands at this group.

The venture's managing director is Andrew Wilkie. He's joined by Sahar
Shaker, Gum's director of strategy. And Daley has recruited two equity
partners from outside the ad industry, Andreas Neumann and Amos, to
improve Gum's knowledge of popular culture.

Amos brings with him an interesting background - at the age of 13 he was
spotted by Boy George on the South London club scene and was brought
into his band Culture Club with the name Captain Crucial. He then
started producing his own music and formed a band with Ringo Starr's son
Zak Starkey, which had some success in Japan.

At the same time, he worked as a creative consultant to many major
record labels, helping them connect their acts to the urban market. His
knowledge of urban culture is rooted in his childhood - his mother is
Erin Pizzey, a feminist who founded the first women's refuge for
battered women in 1971, and when he was growing up she adopted three
West Indian children who became his brothers. He is also engaged to Lisa
I'Anson and they have two children together.

Neumann, also known as Dre, began his career by founding an advertising
production company in his native Munich. He then moved to Grey and
became its head of TV at the tender age of 27.

In 1999, he produced the first 360-degree movie, for Volkswagen, with a
budget of £7 million. A cinema had to be purpose-built for the
film to be screened - it lasted just seven minutes but was seen by more
than four million people.

Neumann then turned to music and started producing with the Berman
Brothers.

He made records for Mica Paris and annoyed the entire world with the
Baha Men, who were responsible for the number-one single Who Let the
Dogs Out?, for which he won a Grammy. And he lives with the singer Mica
Paris, who performed at the launch party.

Daley says: "This market is massively fragmented. To target it
effectively, we need to find out what these groups want without pushing
into their lives. This group is massively cynical towards advertising
and marketing and is fully versed in different media. We look at
influences that fuel their culture, including the communication
platforms."

However, just firing a million messages through ten different media
channels at a fragmented youth audience is not going to be effective
enough for clients, so Saatchis has based the Gum offering on a
strategic plan that ensures accountability. "The strategic model is
important to the credibility of it. A lot of clients are multinational
and global. We can make sure that if they are pushing into
entertainment, there are no geographical boundaries. We can build unique
metrics to what we decide and what the client needs and there is a real
possibility that the client can get fiscal return as well as brand
recognition," Daley says.

Saatchis is following Leo Burnett into the branded content arena -
Burnett launched its Spring London division in 2002. Chris Harrison, the
managing director of Spring London, is supportive of the move.

"I think it is great news for the industry that another agency is
getting involved. The more people who know about branded content the
better. It's a sound idea and they'll need a bit of time to find their
feet," he says.

The entire Saatchis management team claims to be committed to Gum and
Daley is confident that many more agencies will follow down the branded
content route. However, he is also aware that, just like the dotcom
boom, it could all go wrong and that Saatchis still needs to knuckle
down with bread-and-butter advertising.

"Advertising focused on service is becoming a redundant business model,
but we'll have to continue working in conventional channels. I am
positive this is changing. But, from a client point of view, there is
still a lot of nervousness, so it may take some time," he concludes.