Just how is Ambrose Carr Linton Carroll ‘brand smart and user friendly’? And what does that have to do with the creative process? ACLC believes that advertising agencies are a lot like brands —

they need to be differentiated. Several years back, ACLC took a step back and studied its core strengths, emerging with the positioning phrase ‘brand smart and user friendly’.

To President and CEO Esmé Carroll, being ‘brand smart’ in the advertising environment of the 90s means you have to build brand image or equity for a client, as well as stimulate traffic or some form of immediate response.

‘Years ago, there was image advertising and tactical advertising. Today, clients are looking for a balance, so the creative product has to achieve both,’ says Carroll.

Creating an environment where the creative personnel can turn out superior product is where the ‘user friendly’ part of the equation comes in.

‘We have a unique culture here,’ says Steve Conover, Senior Vice-President and Executive Creative Director. ‘We look for people who aren’t prima donnas, who aren’t silo builders, who don’t have a ton of attitude. Instead, we want people who are open to ideas from other departments, and from the client.’

Adds Carroll, ‘There’s a seamless integration between the creatives, account management and the client. We don’t have a sense of ‘department’. We have a sense of ‘team’. Strategic and creative development is a participative process.’

Don’t all agencies consider themselves as creative? Sure, says Conover, in the same way that all cars are transportation. But each car has its own attributes.

Creativity is a given,’ he says. ‘But different agencies get at it in different ways. Here, we filter our creativity through our brand smart and user friendly philosophy.’

Promoting the brand image while driving sales results is a delicate balancing act, notes Conover. Among the successes he is most proud of is the Honda Canada account.

‘They’ve gone to four-calendar year sales events, and each one has to get the brand component in the right light,’ he says. ‘One of the things we’ve been leveraging is Honda’s recent success in CART racing. A lot of Honda’s ‘lab work’ in technology is incorporate later in their passenger cars. We’ve just gone through the Checkered Flag Sales Event, and the message there is that Honda has state-of-the-art engineering.’

ACLC’s creative executions — from advertising and direct response mailers, to catalogues and POP materials — have contributed to outstanding results. In 1998, the Honda Civic became the bestselling car in Canada, steering ahead of the Chevy Cavalier, which had held the top spot for the previous eight years. And Honda, for the first time ever, became the number two seller of passenger cars in Canada, with Ford and Chrysler trailing.

The agency’s work for Acura is just as impressive. In 1986, ACLC introduced the first luxury performance car from Japan. Ever since, it has reinforced the memorable line — ‘Designed with purpose. Driven by passion.’ — and helped convince a growing number of Canadians that you can have the highest standard of quality at a competitive price. Acura continues to exceed sales targets, and break monthly and yearly sales records. ACLC even parked an Acura in the lobby of its midtown Toronto building, calling it a ‘sales tool’. ‘We like to be hands on with the products we represent, ‘ explains Conover.

That’s why you’ll also find a Toronto Sun box in the lobby. ACLC has been the tabloid’s agency for most of its history. The current campaign theme is ‘See what the Sun came up with today’, which Strategy called a ‘bright spot’ amidst the expensive newspaper campaigns waged since last year by the National Post, Toronto Star, and Globe & Mail.

The Sun campaign, which creates montages of the paper’s contents (e.g.Mayor Mel Lastman’s head on a bikini-clad woman’s body, with the legs of a Toronto Maple Leaf), drew this comment from Strategy: ‘It ain’t complicated, but it has cheekiness and personality, just like the product it advertises.’

How cheeky can ACLC be with the Sun advertising? When the National Post launched, ACLC produced an ad that reproduced an old quote of Barbara Amiel, wife of proprietor Conrad Black, praising the Sun as a ‘watershed’. The ad wished Black good luck, pointing out that the Post had a lot to live up to.

During the fall 1998 launch of the Post, when the Sun spent far less than its competitors on advertising, the Sun’s circulation grew while the Star’s and the Globe’s fell. The latest circulation figures show the Sun up 4% and the Star down 2% — even more remarkable when you consider the Sun relies exclusively on newsstand sales six days a week, with delivery only on Sundays. In arriving at creative insight for clients like Honda, Acura, the Toronto Sun, Harvey’s, Swiss Chalet, Hershey, and Paramount Canada’s Wonderland, ACLC strives to ‘go beyond the expected,’ says Carroll. ‘The job is still ultimately to be intrusive and memorable,’ she says.

For that, Carroll says, creative personnel must be more flexible than ever in their thinking, and consider all the possible vehicles for conveying the marketing message.

She notes ACLC’s recent direct response mailer for the Odyssey van, which included a pair of 3D glasses and images of the van printed in 3D — a play on the van’s roomyinterior space. From the initial interest, ACLC expects a 10% response rate, incredible for direct mail. Carroll says one reason for ACLC’s success is that the agency treats each creative challenge,whether a national ad campaign or a ‘vinyl sticky for a window’, with the same importance. She captures that attitude with one of ACLC’s pet phrases: ‘We do windows.’ ‘Esmé and I both have experience in agencies where the golden assignment is the 30-second TV commercial, and there are still plenty of places where the top team works only on TV,’ says Conover. ‘But then you don’t have the same continuity or level of attention across all of the campaign elements. Here, we have a unique style of working. And we believe that it’s the environment that spawns great work.’

AMBROSE CARR LINTON CARROLL INC.

Esmé Carroll

President CEO

939 Eglinton Avenue East

Toronto, Ont.

M4G 4E8

Tel: 416 425-8200

Fax: 416 425-5962

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