In the wake of a keen­ly com­pet­i­tive review, New York-head­quar­tered mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing agency 360i (part of the Dentsu ad net­work) has clinched the cov­et­ed role of glob­al lead dig­i­tal agency for Estee Lauder’s pres­ti­gious Clin­ique brand. While the busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ag­er who over­saw that lit­tle con­sol­i­da­tion may not have stopped pop­ping cham­pagne corks just yet, the agency has a big task ahead of it.

Until now, Clin­ique has tend­ed toward a some­what frag­men­tary mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing strat­e­gy glob­al­ly, using dif­fer­ent agen­cies in dif­fer­ent coun­tries. But its Senior VP of Mar­ket­ing, Agnes Laud­er, told AdAge mag­a­zine that that’s chang­ing: as a glob­al brand, it wants a more “dis­ci­plined and strate­gic” alter­na­tive now – and 360i has been hired to play a piv­otal role in devel­op­ing “a glob­al strat­e­gy that sets Clin­ique apart.”

Mul­ti-plat­form, mul­ti-coun­try 

So, if you were that cel­e­brat­ing busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ag­er, how would you advise your cre­atives to pre­serve the brand’s unique­ness while giv­ing it a glob­al voice? The agency is well placed to exe­cute cam­paigns across all social net­works, includ­ing Twit­ter, Pin­ter­est and Insta­gram (social is one of its spe­cialisms) but the strat­e­gy will need to encom­pass dig­i­tal, cre­ative and media in its scope. But hey, that’s well with­in 360i’s tool­box, too.

The agency has been charged with lead­ing the beau­ty giant’s con­tent strat­e­gy for all its exist­ing glob­al dig­i­tal plat­forms. The brands pre­miere mar­kets include North Amer­i­ca, Europe, Asia Pacif­ic, Latin Amer­i­ca, Africa and the Mid­dle East.

Big mon­ey

Clin­ique has a rep­u­ta­tion for being a big spender on dig­i­tal mea­sured media – the biggest spender, in fact, in Estee Lauder’s entire US port­fo­lio of brands (it spent $135.4 mil­lion last year). And accord­ing to Lan­dau, that’s not about to change. On the con­trary, she says, it will grow:

“What dig­i­tal allows us to do you can’t accom­plish on a TV com­mer­cial or in print media. It’s not about brands talk­ing to the con­sumer. It’s sud­den­ly about conversation.”

360i now has respon­si­bil­i­ty for work­ing suc­cess­ful­ly with a high­ly pres­ti­gious brand that’s been a high fli­er in the beau­ty busi­ness for just short of half a cen­tu­ry. But it’s got form: fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful pitch, it bagged Sunway’s glob­al social media busi­ness last month. So maybe that busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ag­er is still feel­ing jubi­lant, even if the respon­si­bil­i­ty squeezes the adren­a­ls just a lit­tle bit.