BBC names digital roster

Agency Republic, Modem Media and a partnership between I-Level and Dare have been named as the BBC’s first digital roster agencies.

The broadcaster began the pitch, which involved representatives from the BBC’s domestic and international marketing departments, last November (MW November 11, 2004), and 70 agencies from across Europe expressed an interest. Because the BBC is a public body, it must go through a public tender for all its procurement under European Union regulations.

The idea of a roster was first suggested by the BBC World Service marketing team, which in recent years has successfully used online marketing to promote bbcnews.com in North America and western Europe, bbcrussian.com in Russia and the Spanish language site bbcmundo.com across Latin America.

BBC World Service marketing communications and audiences controller Alan Booth says: “Online is delivering an important new audience for the BBC. These are people who are curious about the world, hungry for news updates and rapid insights on major issues. By having a roster of specialist agencies we can promote our relevance to their lives with highly targeted, relevant and timely BBC internet marketing campaigns.”