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The Hyperfactory: in brief
Type of agency: full service.
Founded: 2001 in Auckland, New Zealand.
Acquisitions: Acquired by Meredith Corporation in 2010.
Main offices: New York, USA (HQ); Hyderabad, India.
Employees (in mobile): 140.
Ownership: Wholly-owned subsidiary of Meredith Corporation.
Contact details: info (AT) thehyperfactory.com.
Web: thehyperfactory.com; Mobile Web: thehyperfactory.mobi/.
Recent news:
• June 2012 – Geoffrey Handley appointed to first Cannes Mobile Lions jury
• December 2011 – iMedia Agency Awards 2011: Best Agency for mobile.
Profile submitted by: Geoffrey Handley, co-founder, chief marketing officer.
Profile first published: July 2012.
Video showreel of The Hyperfactory’s best work in 2011, including 42 Below, United Nations Australia, Nike, AB InBev, Intel, Gerber, Wendy’s, Trojan, Coca-Cola and Kraft Foods.
AGENCY: in depth
1) Global annual revenue from mobile: Band E US$10-20 million.
2) Is the mobile business profitable? Yes.
3) How is the company funded? Wholly-owned subsidiary of Meredith Corporation following acquisition in 2010.
4) Proportion of business related to mobile: 100%.
5) Business split: strategy 30%; creative 20%; technical 50%.
6) Key mobile activities: Mobile Web: 30%; mobile apps: 30%; m-commerce: 15%; mobile messaging: 5%; media buying: 5%; 2D codes, short codes or premium numbers: 5%; other mobile services (e.g., innovation, R&D, etc.): 10%.
7) Specialties/expertise: As a technology-agnostic, strategy-led practice, The Hyperfactory focuses on understanding the consumers’ mobile mindset. With over 10 years’ leading the way in mobile, the technology and R&D team is second to none.
8) Main competitors: Ansible, Razorfish, Phonevalley.
9) Type of clients/industries: Multiple sectors and verticals, including CPG, finance, automotive, pharmaceuticals/healthcare, retail and hospitality.
10) Client base: 20 clients for whom The Hyperfactory is either a roster agency or mobile agency of record, and 15 multiple-program clients, including Kraft Foods, Nestlé-Gerber, Lowe’s, Church & Dwight, L’Oréal, AB InBev, Coca-Cola, Liberty Mutual and Microsoft.
11) Geographical coverage (with % of revenues): United States: 77.5%; New Zealand/Australia: 12.5%; Canada: 5%; Europe: 5%.
12) Works most closely with (apart from clients): In addition to collaborating with sister agencies within Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, The Hyperfactory routinely works alongside clients’ key agency partners and has deep relationships with specialist agencies, platform providers and technology innovators across the mobile ecosystem, from Google, Facebook and Apple right down to small start-ups.
13) Award-winning campaigns:
a) Kraft: iFood Assistant
• Mashable Awards 2011: finalist (Best branded mobile app).
• Edison Award 2010: Bronze (Media & visual communications).
• Advertising Age Best marketer apps 2010.
Kraft is one of the most mobile-savvy brands globally and winner of the MMA Global Award 2010 for overall excellence. Initially the iFood Assistant was only available as a paid-for iPhone app – The Hyperfactory worked with Kraft to build a free version for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7. The app features thousands of recipes, allows users to save and share recipes and shopping lists and make savings with Coupons.com and Grocery IQ. Marcus Samuelsson recipes are available for in-app purchase, while voice control allows for easier search, shopping list management and hands-free recipe instructions.
b) Intel: Work Smarter
• MMA Global Awards 2010 North America winner (Innovation).
Work Smarter was a drag-and-drop-based product configuration tool hosted within a rich media ad, which allowed iPhone users to choose the best Intel Core Family 2010 processor to suit their digital lifestyles. The ad ran as an expandable banner and full-page interstitial ad within the mobile browser or mobile app. With the help of Pandora, the ad allowed users to create a custom music station of personalized Intel soundtracks.
• video case study.
c) Trojan Fire & Ice
• MMA Global Awards 2010 North America winner (Mobile marketing for product launch).
The Trojan Fire & Ice rich-media campaign was an insight-led, mobile-media strategy centered on contextually-relevant, engaging rich-media mobile ad units, custom content and publisher integrations with Pandora, Shazam and MTV’s Jersey Shore. The campaign was one of Trojan’s most successful product launches ever, and the rich media units proved to be 300 percent more effective than traditional media.
• video case study.
d) Clinique 3-Step product launch & sampling
• MMA Global Awards 2010 APAC winner (Mobile marketing for product launch).
To introduce Clinique’s 3-Step products in Australia and Singapore, The Hyperfactory ran mobile media across multiple publishers to drive customers to the Clinique mobile site where they could learn about products, find out their skin type and get a free sample. The campaign performed exceptionally well, with the mobile site receiving nearly 60 percent repeat visitors; during the media run, click conversion was 97 percent. Of the people who viewed the Free Sample section, 30 percent continued on to complete the process, and in Singapore, where sample required in-store redemption, 99 percent of customers followed through. Especially notable were the costs per sample and per action on mobile, which were a third of the cost of their digital counterparts.
14) How do you sell mobile to your clients?
Mobile reaches consumers wherever they are, at any time of day, which makes it an essential tool for driving innovation and scale of user engagement. It is an always-on, ever-present communications platform that ties seamlessly with other mediums such as digital, print, out-of-home and social, and provides another touch point with which to develop and deepen brands’ relationships with consumers. With this truly personal device, users can easily retrieve and share the information that interests them most, on the go, while allowing us to learn their preferences and usage habits to deliver them the most optimized and effective mobile experiences for their lifestyles.
15) What return on investment (ROI) should your clients expect from mobile?
Clients look at ROI in different ways; traditionally, it’s been challenging to quantify mobile’s exact contribution and lift to business because mobile has often been an assisting channel across the overall mix. That’s going to change as m-commerce allows us to measure direct sales. Until then, many large corporations have managed to define their own frameworks for measuring success, often tied to brand and engagement measures. These include: calculating the revenue contributions from mobile versus desktop product views; mobile’s contribution to program enrollments; and the frequency and time spent on engagement via mobile versus traditional web. If the brand does not have internal performance frameworks, then the most important question to establish is: what does success look like? This helps to define how the client values digital engagement. Recommendations of proxy approaches and evaluating the unique utilities of mobile such as LBS store finders will get them get closer to achieving their goals.
16) Membership of industry bodies and industry accreditations:
• The Hyperfactory is comprised of long-standing Global Board members of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and founding members of the APAC Board. Geoffrey Handley is the MMA Global Secretary.
• The Hyperfactory is a member of Mocean Mobile’s Publisher Annex, launched in October 2011.
• General technical certifications for all developers (Microsoft .NET, Oracle, etc.), MMA certifications, specific third-party technical accreditations, PMI for project managers, etc.
17) What needs to happen to accelerate mobile marketing/Web/services over the next five years? The emergence of the cloud, rollout of 4G and the adoption of m-commerce, specifically NFC, will change the entire landscape. For the first time, consumers will be able to do everything – scanning products, accessing promotions, checking in and paying for products on the run and in the store – with their mobile devices. Corporations will need to deploy mobile intelligently across their business units – those that struggle to align disparate business units or fail to adopt a consumer-centric approach to mobility through brand and infrastructure planning will lag behind.
18) In 2015, mobile will be… all about mobility—the way each of the different screens we view, touch and engage with everyday, from our cars, tablets, stoves, phones, billboards, etc., interact with each other and us in a contextually-relevant way. Each interface plays a different, location-based, contextual role; knitting this experience together for publishers, advertisers and consumers will be the next great challenge.
19) Key differentiation: The Hyperfactory is one of the longest-standing, pure mobile agencies in the world, building best-in-class mobile solutions through integrated mobile strategy, creative, media, execution and analytics. The Hyperfactory believes the idea should drive the program, not the technology; ideas are grounded in consumer research and backed by insights. We maintain a technology-agnostic approach that enables us to identify the most effective strategies, as well as the most appropriate mobile technologies, through planning, integration and deployment, regardless of platform, protocol or device.
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• Next agency profile: Mobext
• All profiled agencies: Guide home
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