LONDON, June 2, 2011- Dentsu, the world’s #1 consolidated agency network and the world’s 5th largest marketing communications holding company*, announced today that it has acquired 100% of the share capital of Steak Group. Steak will operate under the supervision of Dentsu Network West, reporting to its London office.

Steak is a digital media company, with offices in London, New York and Melbourne. Its reputation for consumer engagement and delivering measurable results is reflected in its diverse client roster, which includes such innovative brands as Virgin Holidays, AXA, Swiftcover, Debenhams and Comparethemarket.com.

Steak currently has 94 employees and is led by Oliver Bishop, Co-founder and CEO, and Duncan Parry, Co-founder and Head of Paid Search. Seb Bishop is non-executive Chairman.

Steak was Interactive Media Awards Agency of the Year after only three years trading in 2008, and has since maintained top fifteen status in Marketing and New Media Age league tables for digital search agencies in the UK.

Jim Kelly, CEO of Dentsu Europe said, “I have followed Steak’s progress since it started in 2005, and admire enormously what Ollie and his partners have achieved. Digital media is a cornerstone of Dentsu Network West’s growth strategy. This acquisition is a great step in offering class leading digital solutions to our clients in Europe”.

Ollie Bishop said, “I’m excited about being part of Dentsu. They take digital seriously and want to be a leader in online marketing- and that’s exactly our ethos at Steak. It’s a perfect fit – we’ll continue to grow as Steak and as a major part of Dentsu in Europe. Everyone past and present at Steak Group’s companies in London, New York and Melbourne should be proud of what we’ve achieved in a short space of time – and look forward to an exciting future”.

The partnership enables Steak to both work with Dentsu’s European offices, and to offer to its clients Dentsu’s media expertise throughout Asia. Steak is currently exploring opportunities for its clients in South East Asia.

The acquisition also doubles Dentsu’s size in the UK (alongside Dentsu London and Dentsu Sports), and follows on Dentsu’s acquisition in January of the Düsseldorf based digital creative agency, Social Thinkers, further substantiating Dentsu’s commitment to digital growth and success in Europe. Jim Kelly will join the Steak board of directors along with Tim Andree, CEO of Dentsu Network West, and Executive Officer, Dentsu Inc. Seb Bishop will remain as non-executive Chairman.

Steak’s operations will continue to be run from its headquarters in Shorts Gardens, Covent Garden, London.

As part of the transaction, Beringea the private equity investor, which invested in Steak in 2007 will fully exit the business and Trevor Hope, Beringea’s Chief Investment officer will step down from Steak’s Board.

Dentsu was advised by Clarity Capital Partners and Steak by Green Square Partners.

About Dentsu Network West

Dentsu Network West is a dynamic, collaborative collective of Dentsu-owned companies in North America, Latin America, Europe and Australia, comprising 35 offices in 11 countries. Its operating companies include Dentsu-branded agencies as well as the industry’s most lauded names, such as ATTIK, 360i (on Advertising Age’s 2010 A-List), mcgarrybowen (Ad Age’s 2010 A-List, as well as their 2009 Agency of the Year), and Firstborn (on Advertising Age’s 2009 A-List). Dentsu Network West’s mission is to connect all of the future-obsessed, client-centric, entrepreneurial talent of the Network in service of its clients’ businesses. Dentsu Network West is headquartered in New York, with regional hubs in London and São Paulo.

About Steak Group

Steak Group comprises digital marketing services companies Steak UK, Steak US, Steak Australia and Minute Steak. Steak specialises in paid and natural search marketing (SEM and SEO), social media marketing, affiliate management, display advertising and digital design. Steak’s clients include Virgin Holidays, Debenhams, Swiftcover and Dixons Retail in the UK; Trump Hotels, Maxim and UStoreit in the US; and Betfair, Best Western and Thrifty in Australia. Minute Steak provides cost-effective search and social media services to smaller budget advertisers including fashion brands, online retailers and business service providers. Steak is a previous winner of the coveted Media Agency of the Year award at the Interactive Marketing and Advertising Awards, and has offices in London, New York and Melbourne.

On Monday, 28 March 2011, swiftcover.com launched its new six-figure social media campaign called ‘Roadology’, which aims to make everyday car journeys more exciting.

To mark its arrival, swiftcover.com is offering an all expenses paid, once in a life-time road trip for two along Route 66 for a lucky Absolute Radio listener who will bring the journey to life through the Roadology Facebook Blog. Content will also be supplied by Visit England, Spotify and kgb deals alongside many other hand-picked activities.

Using Facebook as the campaign hub and complemented with Google API map functionality, Twitter and specifically selected blogs, the Roadology Map is about enhancing road trips for UK motorists by suggesting exciting activities and interesting things to see whilst driving. On inputting a start and end point, the function will develop a route before plotting appropriate hidden gems and places of interest, tailored to individuals’ preferences.

Developed by swiftcover.com’s PR agency, Brazil, and its digital agency Steak, the insurer hopes to make journeys more interesting and fun for families, couples or individuals looking for new and different things to do and see along their potentially mundane journey.

Tina Shortle, marketing director at swiftcover.com commented: “We’re always looking to innovate and develop our offering not only for existing customers but for the wider motoring community. The Roadology campaign is extremely exciting for us and is further evidence of us pushing boundaries where we can by giving something useful back to disillusioned commuters who are looking for interesting things to do on boring car journeys.”

swiftcover.com’s PR agency, Brazil, and its digital agency Steak created Roadology and will manage the content and future development of the campaign. Both parties have set up a number of partnerships which will offer a wide range of content and functionality to further enhance the page over the coming months. 

Richard Watts, creative director at PR agency, Brazil commented: “We’ve been working with swiftcover.com for a number of years and it continues to be an exciting and innovative company. Third party relationships will enhance this offering making it a truly unique and engaging place to visit.”

Absolute Radio has partnered with the Roadology campaign to bring the Route 66 competition prize to life, driving traffic and entrants through the Facebook page. The lucky winner of this once in a life-time prize will generate content while on the trip by visiting exciting places along the route – reporting back regularly through the Roadology blog tab.

Kate Bath, head of digital display, at digital agency Steak, commented: “We have evolved swiftcover.com’s social strategy into a focused campaign that combines their core product with their target audience’s key passion points – that being travelling, journeys, music and recommendations. We believe this is a hub where consumers can go to experience new and exciting activities on the road. Coupled with this, is some great innovation in terms of technical builds and partner integration which has provided us with a solid platform on which to launch Roadology.”

swiftcover.com and Spotify have developed a bespoke Roadology Playlist  generator so that motorists can listen to their favourite songs and discover new tracks whilst they travel. Visitors to the Facebook page can enter an artist’s name to create a Spotify playlist of similar music that will last the expected time of the journey. Users with Spotify Premium can listen to the playlist through the Spotify app as they travel. Swiftcover.com is also giving ten lucky winners Spotify Premium accounts.

Regular competitions will also take shape on the page with £2,000 up for grabs in the first four weeks. Entrants need to simply upload their favourite picture of a special place in Great Britain to the competition page to stand a chance of winning.

Visit the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/roadology

Adecco, has also created a job board dedicated to meeting the human resourcing requirements of the London and UK employers in the lead up to and during the Olympic Games in 2012, Jobs for The Games.  Minute Steak’s activity will be focused on raising exposure and awareness of the job board www.jobsforthegames.co.uk launched earlier this year, through targeted search activity.

Gemma Haggarty, Managing Director of Minute Steak says, “This is an exciting brief, given that the whole country is directing its attention to the London Olympics – there is a great opportunity for people to get directly involved with the Games in London in 2012.  We are looking forward to implementing strategies to increase the awareness of Adecco Group in creative and unique ways.”

Andy Powell, Group Brand & Marketing Director, Adecco Group UK & Ireland adds, “We felt that Minute Steak understood our objectives and their insightful approach and understanding of the different customer profiles of each of our brands will help us to effectively increase our reach.”

*In January 2009, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) named Adecco as its exclusive, official recruitment services provider.

Press coverage:

Brand Republic

Media Week

Campaign

Our task is to help raise awareness of the MOO brand and its range of innovative personalised print products and accessories through targeted display campaigns and to drive a high volume of quality traffic to MOO through paid search.

Paul Lewis, Head of Marketing at MOO comments, “We’re excited to be working with Steak; we feel that their energy and passion, as well as their understanding of driving efficient results, is a great fit with MOO as we look to accelerate global growth”.

Phil Burgess, Client Service Director at Steak adds, “MOO is one of those brands that you can’t help falling in love with a little bit, because it mixes traditional skills such as print and makes it personal and accessible to everyone via the web. We’re looking forward to working with them across multiple territories and utilising the Steak network to deliver sales”.

MOO, founded in 2004, combines the values of professional design with the accessibility and reach of the Internet.  With the patent-pending ‘Printfinity’ technology, MOO helps its customers to showcase their business or brand, their products or personality, by printing a different image on every card in a pack.  MOO has raised over US $5M in venture capital from the Accelerator Group, Index Ventures and Atlas Venture – the investors behind Skype, Betfair, Lovefilm, Last.fm and MySQL.  MOO’s customer base extends to 180 countries, and has a 75% NetPromoter rating.

Press Coverage:

Campaign

Brand Republic

Media Week

Marketing Magazine

LONDON 21 October 2010 – Steak, the digital marketing services agency, announces the appointment of Nick Gill as Managing Director of Steak Australia. Based in Melbourne, Gill will head up the full service digital agency team offering SEM, SEO and integrated digital media for their client base including Red Group Retail (Borders, Angus & Robertson, Whitcoulls), Big W, Best Western, Betfair and Thrifty. Nick will replace Martin Carlill who has worked for Steak Group (UK and Australia) for just over five years.

Nick joins from Yahoo! UK & Ireland, where he was Head of Account Management, responsible for a team of over 60, providing integrated display, search, mobile and video marketing solutions to Yahoo!’s largest advertisers, generating revenue in excess of £50 million a year.  Previously, Nick was appointed by Yahoo! Search Marketing in 2006 to lead the sales and account management team for the launch of Yahoo!’s global search advertising platform.

Born in Melbourne, Nick moved to the UK in 2001 and began his online career at QXL.com, after which, he joined Kelkoo, Europe’s leading online price comparison site, in 2003.  Kelkoo was acquired by Yahoo! For €540 million, by which time Nick had been promoted to head of Sales leading a team responsible for the management of some of the UK’s largest businesses including retailing  juggernauts Curry’s, Comet and John Lewis.

Oliver Bishop, co-founder and CEO of Steak comments, “I would like to thank Martin wholeheartedly for his dedication in running the Steak office, building our proposition in Melbourne, and his work with us in the UK.  We sincerely wish him all the best in his next venture.  We would also like to welcome Nick to Steak, he has the wealth of knowledge and experience in the digital sector which will take Steak Australia to the next stage.  We are excited that he’s joined us.”

Nick Gill, Managing Director of Steak Australia adds, “I have been fortunate to work in the UK at time when the industry was experiencing extraordinary growth and creativity, I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to return to Australia, and I’m delighted I can do this through the Steak brand; and I look forward to developing the business further.”

Recent account wins for Steak in London includes comparethemarket.com and DSGi the specialist retailing group for Currys, Dixons.co.uk and PC World.

Mark Attwell, Associate Director, eCommerce of comparethemarket.com says, “We work with specialists in different areas of our business, and were attracted to Steak’s transparent approach and proven track record in delivering results quickly.”

Ollie Bishop, CEO and co-founder of Steak adds, “We’re excited to be working with comparethemarket.com, an iconic brand with great recognition through their comparethemeerkat.com marketing campaign.  With high awareness in this marketplace already, we will be taking their brand further by optimising their site to work better within the SEO arena, ensuring a steady flow of new visitors to their website.”

comparethemarket.com was launched in 2006 as a motor insurance comparison site, offering customers a wide range of competitively priced insurance quotes instantly online, from over 400 insurance prices. It is now the most recognised insurance price comparison website in the UK.
As well as insurance, comparethemarket.com also offers comparisons on credit cards, loans, current accounts and savings accounts.

The gallery of sad faces will feature on the swiftcover.com Facebook page, updated in real-time, and can be linked to users’ own Facebook pages.  The winner of the best “mourning” face will be announced w/c 11 October, judged by swiftcover.com and will win a Red Letter DayTM experience day voucher worth £300; further prizes include 20 Spotify premium accounts worth £2,400.

The interactive campaign including display advertising, social media activity and advertising in casual games; was devised and conceived by swiftcover.com’s digital agency Steak.  Steak also designed and developed the “Summer Mourning” Facebook application. 

Visitors to the swiftcover.com Facebook page can download a best of the summer festivals top 25 tracks, voted by music fans, from a playlist devised by swiftcover.com, Absolute Radio and Steak.  The list is available for free download via Spotify from 27th September.

Tina Shortle, Marketing Director of Swiftcover says, “We’re excited that social media remains at the heart of this campaign. Last spring, our ‘favourite tracks of the summer’ playlist successfully encouraged sharing between Facebook users, and with the success of this year’s summer festivals; the Summer Mourning campaign and its best of festivals playlist is a fun way of engaging with our audience around the popular subject of the end of the British summer through posting up sad faces. We’ve been delighted to partner with Absolute Radio and Spotify to create Britain’s favourite festival music playlist and it’s been great to see Facebook users take part to vote for their favourite tracks.”
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John Barton, Head of Planning and Social Media at Steak says ” Music and summer festivals are effective passion points for the swiftcover.com demographic and form the basis of our content strategy and Spotify playlist voting campaign. Swiftcover.com is utilising social channels to interact with their audience in an accessible way. People love to share their photographs and then ‘upload a photo to enter’ format is effective for community building. However this format is nothing new. We wanted to close the summer strategy in a different, fun and memorable way by poking fun at the winter blues after an amazing summer of music festivals with swiftcover.com and Absolute radio.”

Kate Hussey, Head of Display at Steak says “We are once again excited about extending the field of our current social activity to further develop a relationship between consumer and client. We believe that integration between all digital and other advertising channels is crucial to gain stand out, but essentially, it’s finding a connection with your consumers that will gain, the all important, traction. We are delighted to partner with a client who is constantly pushing the boundaries of building consumer relationships through digital”.

The in-game ads will tie into Swiftcover’s “Get a Life” advertising campaign theme featuring Iggy Pop and the “Little Iggy” puppet.

Tina Shortle, Marketing Director for AXA Insurance and swiftcover.com, commented on the initiative, “Swiftcover and Steak have worked closely together over the past five years to stay ahead of the competition. We were the first online only car insurer in 2005, we launched the first car insurance mobile site back in 2007 and have pioneered emerging media channels including Video on Demand and Spotify. Most importantly, we’ve capitalised on early-adopter advantage and have seen some fantastic results.”

The idea was conceived by Steak, who brokered the deal with Massive, the leading video game network, on behalf of swiftcover.com. 

Alastair Boyle, Group Account Director at Steak added, “In-Game advertising is a perfect fit for the swiftcover.com brand and their target audience. This is the latest in our drive to use innovative ad formats for the right reasons, rather than jumping on every new media trend.”

Chris James, EMEA Manager at Massive concluded, “We’re very pleased to be working with Steak to select the right in-game placements for swiftcover.com. In-game ads have been shown to have some of the best recall rates around so it’s fantastic that more and more advertisers are now realising the potential of this medium.”

Studies have shown 72% of gamers recall seeing ads for brands in-game. In 2009 there was a 20% increase in average ad recall from the year before and the average brand recommendation lift scores were 29% ahead [MICROSOFT, 2009] 73% of gamers agreed that “ads enhanced the realism of the game” [INTERPRET, 2008]; and that across 600 gamers on Xbox 360 and PC showed that brand familiarity increased by 64%, brand rating increased by 37%, purchase consideration increased by 41% [NIELSEN, 2007].

June 18, London, UK – Europe’s leading business aviation company, NetJets Europe, today launches a new digital marketing campaign in partnership with Steak. The campaign, ‘The 10-minute Take-off’ highlights the hassle-free nature of flying with NetJets Europe, getting time-poor businesspeople from their car into the air within 10 minutes of arriving at an airport.

The campaign will see a series of display advertisements drive visitors to a dedicated microsite, including site ‘take-overs’ with the FT.com and the Wall Street Journal.

Following a year of travel disruption and commercial airline woes, NetJets Europe has enjoyed increasing interest in its services from first and business class fliers looking to maximize their productivity and escape travel headaches.

“Our research has found that our clients and prospects want nothing more than an easy and completely hassle-free experience of aviation, something that only NetJets has the scale to deliver consistently,” comments Claire Cronin, Director of Marketing at NetJets Europe. “Although we’re the world leader in private aviation, we’re still something of a ‘well-kept secret,’ and with this campaign we’re hoping to educate a wider audience about the benefits of using NetJets.”

When users click on a display ad, they will be taken to a search-optimized microsite at http://www.netjetsuk.com. The centrepiece of the site is the “10-minute take-off” – a dramatisation of the easy, hassle-free boarding experience that passengers will enjoy with NetJets. This message is contrasted with the experience of flying commercially: transfers, hassles, queues, crowds and delays.

Steak was appointed following a competitive pitch to design and produce the micro-site and online advertising assets, support the media planning and buying strategy, and handle search engine optimisation for this latest campaign.

Oliver Bishop, CEO of Steak, says, “NetJets Europe is an exciting brand, with a well defined, demanding target audience. The ‘10-minute’ campaign seeks to reach this audience in an innovative and relevant way, and deliver compelling messages about why both individuals and corporations should consider NetJets.”

This campaign was created for the UK market as a pilot. If successful, NetJets Europe will look to develop new campaigns and online materials in its other target territories in Q3 and Q4.

The campaign from swiftcover.com, the pioneer in online insurance, offered music lovers the chance to create this “Summer’s Hottest Playlist” in collaboration with Absolute Radio.  Building on their ‘Get a Life’ campaign, swiftcover.com extended the campaign theme to encourage users to ‘get a life’ this summer by voting for the summer’s hottest tracks. The campaign devised by Steak, used Facebook as the main hub, hosting an easy-to-use voting application.

A master playlist of 75 tracks was selected by popular Absolute Radio DJs: Christian O’Connell, Geoff Lloyd and Ben Jones.  Spotify and Absolute Radio listeners were prompted by the DJs to visit the Swiftcover Facebook page and voted daily for two weeks via the “sucks” or “rocks” buttons beside the track. This saw the music tracks physically rising and falling, depending on popularity, on the Facebook “chart”.

The final playlist hosted is hosted by Spotify on 22 June through the summer; with Facebook fans, Absolute Radio and Spotify listeners being notified that the winning list can be downloaded and played all summer long.

The idea was conceived by Steak, who is handling the social media and online display campaign.  Audio and display ads including billboards and takeover pages, will appear on Spotify, Absolute Radio and Facebook linking through to swiftcover.com’s Facebook page.  The Facebook app songs then link back to Spotify, which enables visitors to the site to listen to the tracks they’re voting for; and there is an opportunity to win a Spotify premium account for a year.
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Tina Shortle, Marketing Director says, “This is a perfect campaign for the summer – sitting in the park in the sunshine listening to music that you’ve voted for – it epitomises our ‘Get a Life’ campaign.  We’re excited that social media was at the heart of this campaign. Absolute Radio, Facebook and Spotify are the perfect partners for music lovers to create this ‘Summer’s Hottest Playlist’”.

John Barton, Head of Planning and Social Media at Steak says “We wanted to demonstrate how we can effectively integrate social media into our existing through the line digital strategy. This campaign is ultimately about building and fostering relationships between swiftcover.com and their audience in social channels that they’re comfortable with by adding value rather than selling. Music and summer festivals are effective passion point or the swiftcover.com
demographic and form the basis of our content strategy. We are excited and fortunate to work with brands like swiftcover.com who continue to lead the way in digital marketing within the insurance vertical sector”.

Kate Hussey, Head of Display at Steak says “We are excited about enhancing the current Absolute Radio partnership for swiftcover.com along with introducing another key strategic partner, Spotify, as a main driver of our audience. We believe that this campaign has the ability to kick off a summer full of ‘Getting a Life’”.