Brave New Word
Don’t look “impiric” up in your Funk & Wagnall’s, because it’s not there.
Chicago-based Wunderman Cato Johnson and parent Young & Rubicam, New York City, have chosen to create a new word in renaming the direct-marketing and sales promotion agency – and it doesn’t matter how many times they’re going to have to explain its meaning.
“We’re defining the term, rather than redefining Wunderman Cato Johnson,” says WCJ chairman and ceo Jay Bingle. The 40-year-old WCJ name carried cachet in the direct-marketing world – perhaps too much. “We’re really growing in new enabling technologies [such as] the Internet, e-commerce, and infrastructure development. These activities will represent 50 percent of our revenue base this year, and they weren’t aligned with the perception of WCJ,” explains Bingle. “But we’re not moving away from the brand totally. You’ll still see things `brought to you by WCJ.'”
The new moniker signals the end of a two-year restructuring to expand WCJ’s capabilities beyond its traditional strengths (the Cato Johnson end of the business, which merged with direct-marketing division Wunderman Direct in 1992, supplied the sales promotion practice). The allusion to “empiric” – which is in the dictionary and connotes verifiable strategies – is intentional. But the term “impiric” (devised with help from Y&R branding unit Landor Associates) lets the agency boast expertise in three I’s: insight, imagination, and impact.
New York City-based Impiric’s tagline is less nebulous than its name: “The art and science of customer relationships.” The agency’s mission is to marry the WCJ legacies of direct marketing and promotion with emerging research, data-capture, and communication technologies to develop and execute CRM programs with guaranteed success.
That “guaranteed” part will be stressed, because the ability to predict a client’s sales growth, productivity, and cost savings is “going to be embedded in our value proposition,” says Bingle. “We think the market wants to drive that way, and we’re taking a very strong step forward.”
Central to the concept is the launch of The Marketing Lab, a research center that will collect and disseminate information, monitor customer behavior, and assess program effectiveness. Business alliances with Internet direct marketer Digital Impact, San Mateo, CA, and e-mail specialist EchoMail, Cambridge, MA, announced in conjunction with the name change, will greatly enhance Impiric’s online capabilities.
WHITHER PROMOTION?
If customer relationship management is the future of marketing, promotion will be the catalyst for success, says Neil Contess, who was named president of WCJ Promotions Worldwide in January (January promo). “The basic tenet of promotion marketing is influencing behavior. It really is the [promotional] offer that’s going to move the customer from one stage of the life cycle to the next,” he says. “Promotion as a discipline needs to become more sophisticated. It’s an opportunity to form, build, and maintain customer relationships.”
“We brought Neil in here because . . . we have a renewed emphasis on repositioning ourselves in the promotions space – both offline and online,” says Bingle. Impiric plans to grow “aggressively” both organically and through acquisition. “We think [our scale] could be at least two or three times what it is,” says Contess, who’s already guiding the second-largest agency in the promotions business (with $140 million in 1998 net revenue). “We’re going to be a consolidator,” adds Bingle.
The Age of Impiricism begins.
