MUMBAI: Ad agency Leo Burnett USA has announced a new business pitch with a twist.
The agency says that it is looking to grow a new or unknown entity into a recognised brand, by putting its full range of marketing services behind the partnership. Interested organisations can visit www.packagedgood.org to submit proposals for consideration.
Moving beyond the traditional industry channels for public service relationships, the agency is proactively seeking a non-profit organisation as a prospective client partner.
Leo Burnett USA chief marketing officer Ben Kline says, “Our goal, as always, is to invest ourselves and our expertise in a worthy cause. What differentiates this new effort from our pro bono assignments are
three key elements. We want to build a brand from scratch. We want the relationship to be long-term. And we want to fully leverage our strengths to help a worthy cause receive the awareness and recognition it deserves.”
The deadline for proposals is December 20, 2005. The agency is hoping to identify finalists for consideration by the first week of January 2006.
According to Kline, Packaged Good will allow the agency to reach charities beyond the established pro bono realm. “As with most agencies, the causes we support are often determined by existing relationships between the charities and our people. Hopefully the broad scope of this review process will open the door to a wider range of organisations and causes that we might not have been exposed to in the past” he adds.
Leo Burnett further says that it maintains a long-standing commitment to public service advertising, handling campaigns for such well-known local and national charitable organizations as The Greater Chicago Food Depository, Kohl’s Children’s Museum, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the Department of Transportation and United Nations AIDS Foundation, both in conjunction with the Advertising Council.
Many of these public service campaigns – from the Crash Test Dummies to the recent award-winning work for the UN Aids Foundation – are recognised. While the agency will continue pro bono efforts such as these, the new Packaged Good initiative aims at taking the agency’s commitment to public service efforts a step further.