63336 launches its first TV advertising campaign in the UK

"I am one of the 63336" advert created in less than 2 months with an innovative intra–industry competition

26 November 2009

63336 (formerly known as AQA 63336), the UK's first and most accurate text question and answer service, will launch a Christmas marketing campaign on 30 November with its first television advert as it seeks to acquire new customers and increase question volume.

The advert, "I am one of the 63336" has been developed and produced using an innovative creative process started in September 2009. Eschewing the traditional advertising pitch approach, 63336 ran a competition that saw 17 respected teams of creative directors presenting ideas based on a simple brief – to get customers to text questions to 63336. From start to finish the whole process took two months.

"Our challenge has always been how to effectively market a number, 63336, to an audience which compels them to text a question. For the last two years we've followed the traditional method of developing ideas by going through pitch processes, and putting on retainer a number of the most 'creative' agencies in the UK," said Colly Myers , CEO, 63336. "Not only has this been very expensive and time consuming, but we've never achieved a satisfactory result."

Rather than focusing on user generated content, the 63336 creative competition only focused on experienced UK creative talent. Similar to processes used by venture capital companies, the concept was to get as many teams as possible to submit ideas, from a very tight brief, from which a winning concept could be selected.

The competition was developed with Goodstuff communications, who are also responsible for managing the media buying. The Gallery Network was employed to run the competition, and then manage, develop, and produce the final television advert. The 63336 advert competition took three weeks, the eventual winners being "Tim & Michael" with their advert idea "I am one of the 63336".

"The Gallery Network were pivotal in the creation of our TV advert. They were able to bring teams of senior advertising executives to work on creative ideas for us, and once we'd picked a winner the Gallery managed the whole process of getting directors and producers to deliver a TV advert on a tight budget and timescale," commented Colly Myers. "The team has created an exceptional advert and we're confident that this will attract large numbers of new customers."

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