What are Orange up to? Who's their agency

Excellent concept and great creatives both online and offline, and a fantastic call to action....but when you do search for "I am" your expectations are sadly, not met. They have invested a lot of money in creating a reputation management issue for themselves, as well as loads of free publicity for I-am-bored.com. A real shame and a such a wasted opportunity. I've created an "I am" ad for them, which, I think, sums it up. It may interest you, it may not...take a look at my blog if you fancy. Who is their agency?

See the thread on Blogging for Food on this subject. http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/bloggingforfood/archive/2008/07/21/death-of-the-url-only-if-you-ve-cracked-natural-search-mate.aspx

 Goggling "I am", the Orange site is top of the list. You don't know how to Google, do you?

Or perhaps Google didn't quite get their act together in time for the campaign launch?

Goggling or Googling?! What you've seen is their paid search ad'. For a multi-million pound campaign driving people to search online for "I am" which could mean Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Addictomatic, Technorati, Pipl, Summize, You Tube, Flickr.....the list is endless...they should really have thought about their social media footprint and pre-populated it with all the great personality work they had done. They should not be happy with just a Paid Search ad' in Google....they should be dominating at least the whole of the first page natural results. It's a big boat they've missed.

Karl Havard:

Goggling or Googling?! What you've seen is their paid search ad'. For a multi-million pound campaign driving people to search online for "I am" which could mean Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Addictomatic, Technorati, Pipl, Summaize, You Tube, Flickr.....the list is endless...they should really have thought about their social media footprint and pre-populated it with all the great personality work they had done. They should not be happy with just a Paid Search ad' in Google....they should be dominating at least the whole of the first page natural results. It's a big boat they've missed.

I'd love to kow how you think you would get the entire first page of the results?..... Don't think so.

The ads are on Google, Yahoo and MSN engines - i doubt people will see that ad and think 'I better go and search for that on Flickr' BUT: Try searching for "I am" on Flickr and You Tube - Guess what, the paid search Google listing for i-am-everyone.co.uk is there.

Why would they advertise on Pipl (a search engine to find people), Technorati (user generated content search), Addictomatic (create a topic for what?)
 

To get a natural search listing 2nd (at the moment) on Google for "I Am" is no small feat. Not to mention all the online display ads, microsite, You Tube channel and Facebook group for Orange/I am - The list goes on as you say. So in short Karl, where did you get the above inaccuracies from?

In my view this campaign makes a pleasant change from the norm, all credit to Orange and it's agencies for taking this on and largely making it work.

NiCk, Thank you for the reply....I'm glad my comments have stirred up some emotion. I'll answer what you call the "inaccuracies" with the hope that you can see how the whole "I am" campaign could have been dramatically improved upon. If I was Orange or the agency associated I'd be extremely disappointed with the work done. Front page domination of Google (if that is an objective) can be achieved. You make the assumption above that people will always use a "horizontal" search engine first and then look at something like flickr....what about those people who spend their time in flickr and use that to search first? People behave much differently online these days than they did even 6 months ago. So, below is a summary of answers:- - Front page domination in Google, Yahoo! etc could be achieved by ensuring, not only he site and micro site ranks, but also all the other content which could have been deployed. i.e. - The video imagery already created for Jont, Mark Beaumont et al could have been placed in an "I am" channel on You Tube and other video sites. - Likewise, the imagery placed on a flickr account called "I am" - Profiles for each could have been set up on the major social networks with details of profiles, all friends of each other, and with dedicated groups for potential customers to interact with.....and guess what Pipl (you're right about it being a people search engine) would have the profiles shown in the search results for "I am" - Each personality could have had their own blog, to encourage interaction again, and have a presence within the key target areas of the blogosphere....and Technorati (you're right again...it searches blog posts and forums) would also pick it up. - There are many other areas which could have been covered and when using addictomatic to search for "I am" Orange and the associated personalities would have visibility across all the various social media platforms. If all of the above content was tagged and optimised correctly, with a solid and useful link structure; and done in advance of the offline marketing going live, the campaign with the "I am" call to action would have been successful. A very short bullet point answer, with a load more detail I could add (but I won't) and I hope it clears up the "inaccuracies".

Two good questions and the first was asked by Marketing Week last year in a big feature.

I have tried to find the article on the Marketing Week website but I haven't been able to spot it - perhaps 'an other' can help pin point it?

Anyway it featured some of their recent campaigns and it really did highlight how many messages they have sent out over the last few years.

I hope that adds a little more fuel to the discussion fire that seems to be raging above...