Situation
BlackRock is the provider of the world’s leading Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) range. ETFs have revolutionised the way investors manage their portfolios, and BlackRock pioneered making ETFs accessible to all types of investors. BlackRock has been championing ETFs as a better way of investing for the past 15 years, and now has over 380 ETFs listed on exchanges worldwide and over a 45% global market share.
BlackRock is focused on the B2B market, where they are the predominant market and category leader in the UK and across key European markets. In 2010, BlackRock was looking for further category growth by expanding their client base. Critical to this success was a marketing strategy aimed at growth that fully integrated advertising along with digital and direct channels. But BlackRock had found that their existing agency arrangement was not geared up to provide this genuine integration. So in late 2009, Oystercatchers was tasked by BlackRock to find an agency that could help them achieve this.
Action
Essentially BlackRock needed to overcome the inertia of investment professionals so that ETFs could become a central tenet of their investment strategy. To do this a totally integrated channel strategy was necessary. But which agency could provide this Holy Grail?
Effect
In a fascinating process, the fourth agency (M&C Saatchi) won the pitch by seamlessly integrating creative, digital and direct specialists under the umbrella of a single creative approach.