Target MCG launches new joined-up agency model Film3Sixty

The new business, Film3Sixty, will aim to join up different companies that Target already operates to work on unified campaigns for a film through its lifecycle – not just theatrical and DVD but also in some cases starting earlier (at production) and continuing later (potentially through a TV launch). The aim is to have more joined-up thinking across a campaign and work better with new technologies.

Chris Watts, an 11-year veteran of Target Media, will head the new division and also serve as Target MCG director of film. He told Screen: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, we can have joined-up thinking. [Film3Sixty] is designed to replace the current fragmentation. It’s managing those connections – offering a joined-up communications strategy from a consumer perspective, as well as client-facing.”

Clients can use as many or few of the parts of the Film3Sixty model as they want – or also work partially with outside agencies.

Connecting social media plans will be one key aim of the new division. “There’s a feeling that with clients I’m currently speaking to that social media doesn’t fit within any one agency discipline perfectly, it sits across all of them,” Watts said. “We need social media strategic thinking – and the current agency system doesn’t allow that kind of thinking to happen. One of the key thoughts behind Film3Sixty is that social media can work across areas seamlessly.”

Film3Sixty has hired a new Social Media Manager, Kathryn Winter (formerly of the Big Lottery Fund), to work with the social media executives across Target MCG’s companies (which also include PR firm Organic, research company Eyeball, and screen content creation business Superhero).

Being ahead of new technology will also be crucial. “The reason why it feels that now is the right time to launch a new agency model is that technology has fundamentally changed consumer behaviour,” Watts said. “That pace of change will continue and new opportunities will arise, and we want to have an agency model that can accommodate those changes.”

There will also be increased flexibility across parts of a campaign after it begins. Watts noted: “We can also monitor a campaign and divert resources from one area to another to get better results, if needed.”

Rob Wilkerson, Target founder and CEO, added: “We as a group of divisions in the company have been working for studios and independents for a long time, but it appeared to us that we were missing a trick and we could be bundling those services, making it easier for clients and offering a sense of strategic direction and thematic control all the way through.”

For a full interview with Rob Wilkerson click here.