Innocean USA is diversifying its client portfolio by following a simple motto: “Think big but act small.”
The Huntington Beach-based ad shop, created in 2009 to handle Hyundai Motor America Inc., thrives on the “boutique, startup mentality” it adopted early on when its staff of 50 “had to dig in and do everything that Hyundai needed,” said Chad Saul, Innocean’s chief growth officer.
“Five years later and with the addition of 250 people, we never really lost that mentality of being fast, wearing multiple hats. It’s not a matter if we can do it, but how we’re going to do it, and that’s become incredibly attractive to potential clients.”
That “entrepreneurial” spirit has helped Innocean land the advertising agency of record assignment for NRG Energy Inc., a Houston-based energy company with a market value of about $10.7 billion. The incumbent agency on the account was Grey San Francisco.
Media planning and buying business was also part of the pitch to NRG, which took note of Innocean’s quick project startup process.
Financial details of the new account weren’t disclosed, but NRG said in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it spent $195 million on marketing and advertising in 2013.
Innocean’s first assignment highlights NRG’s partnership with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, launched during the league’s opening weekend. The agency developed a 30-second TV commercial that showcases NRG’s solar panels used at the Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field. The spot features a football team from 1930—a metaphor for traditional energy sources—entering a modern stadium where the Eagles squad awaits. The campaign also includes radio and digital advertising components.
Innocean also created one-minute animated ads, “The Power to Be Free” and “Black and White.” In those, the marketing pitch, instead of pushing specific products, aims to “challenge people’s view of energy creation and usage” and get them to consider solar power.
“It’s one thing to try to sell someone on a new type of sustainable technology, but you’re really not doing the whole notion of ‘sustainable’ a great service unless you are fostering and nurturing a great conversation about that topic,” said Chris Halas, the agency’s creative director for the NRG account. “This is a long-term proposition. This is a client that we plan to work with for a long time, and it’s also a proposition for the public that’s going to take some time, but we need people to start realizing that they need to take action now.”
Innocean, aside from the ads, will provide content to “foster the conversation” via a newly forged partnership with TheHuffingtonPost.com Inc. NRG is sponsoring a new page on the news aggregate website titled “Generation Change,” which hosts content on sustainable and renewable energy topics produced by NRG, Innocean, journalists, bloggers and other contributors.
NRG is now part of a small but growing roster of Innocean’s non-auto accounts, which include Acushnet Co.’s FootJoy brand of golf shoes and New York-based dairy product manufacturer Alpina Foods.
The agency, which had an estimated $46.4 million in 2013 revenue, has also had its share of heartbreaks—it was a finalist for the Mophie Inc. smartphone case maker account that went to Taco Bell Corp.’s ad shop, Deutsch LA, and the Los Angeles Clippers’ account, which traded hands from Irvine-based HeilBrice Inc. to RPA in Santa Monica.
Diversity
Innocean isn’t confining itself to a particular product category as it branches out from Fountain Valley-based Hyundai.
There’s “diversity in the [existing] roster and diversity of the accounts we are going after,” Saul said. “We’ve been lucky to build the agency on our own terms, so when we built our capabilities, we not only built a first-class offering for Hyundai, we built it to be attractive to other clients, as well.” When we built our Story Lab—which is our mobile and social offering—we built it so it can be applied at scale to any type of client or any type of industry.”
And here’s where that startup mentality kicks in—while its staff may not be familiar with every product category, they must be eager to learn about them, Saul said.
“When we pitched Mophie, none of us were really experts in iPhone cases and iPhone chargers, but … everyone digs in immediately, and within two or three weeks we usually know as much about the industry and the product as our clients do.”
