Marketing Agency For A Modern World: iCrossing

“We Turn brand potential into business performance, we create brand stories and personalized user experience that drive business outcomes.”

Born as a standalone search marketing agency in 1998, iCrossing is the first of its kind in the U.S. The company has grown alongside its clients and added solutions and expertise to help brands win in the ever-changing marketing, technology, and digital landscape.

Harmonizing creative storytelling and compelling content with the gritty, accountable aspects of digital and performance marketing, iCrossing embrace its performance roots and expertise. Sitting at the crossroads of pretty and gritty, the company’s ultimate focus is on delivering business outcomes for its clients.

Additionally, unleashing the brand potential for 18 years, iCrossing is unique in that it is owned by Hearst, a global diversified media, entertainment and content company. Hearst’s privately-held status enables long-term planning and independence of action. There is a tremendous value that iCrossing can unlock for clients within Hearst. Being relevant and applicable, iCrossing adds the power of Hearst to its solutions - including the rich data, quality content, editorial expertise and category experience.

Some of the most prominent clients of iCrossing include Amazon, Bayer, Bridgestone, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the BMW Group, Church & Dwight, DIRECTV, LEGO, LG, L’Oreal, Microsoft, NBA, PepsiCo, SAP, Starwood, and Toyota. Headquartered in New York, iCrossin’s business has nearly 1,000 employees in 10 countries – with offices throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Helping Brands Win In Today’s C2B Economy

Every solution iCrossing create starts with the premise that B2C marketing is over. The company lives in a consumer-to-business (C2B) economy where consumers are in control of their own individual brand and marketing experiences. In this age of empowered consumers, where consumers lead and brands must follow, the shift from a product-centric approach and brand-driven touch points to consumer-driven touch points is redefining the rules of success. iCrossing believes that its job is to shift brand behavior to help clients thrive in this new reality. It helps brands win by planning around people, not products.

iCrossing is specialized in designing people-centric media, content, and experiences. The role of a brand is to facilitate and fuel its customers’ interests, needs, and passions, and behaviors – so that it engages in a way that makes an emotional connection and powers business growth.

iCrossing aligns brands with the interests, needs, and passions of consumers. Simply put, it help brands engage on consumers’ terms.

“We believe a brand’s success lies in its ability to authentically connect to what customers are interested in and amplify that - rather than disrupt.”

All iCrossing work is driven by this simple, yet powerful, principle: it’s a C2B world. Its approach begins with a deep, data-enabled view of the customer journey. iCrossing identify the points of potential where a brand can participate and engage the consumer and move them forward through the journey. Developing passion platforms, intelligent digital experiences, performance media engines and seamless commerce transactions designed around the consumer, iCrossing understands how specific moments in the customer journey can translate into a substantial impact on business outcomes.

Top-Class Brand Performance Marketing

“We believe in the power of digital marketing, and we help our clients identify, engage and build deep relationships with consumers through it.”

Building a connected brand isn’t easy. If it were, more brands would be doing it. It takes a strong brand strategy and an equally strong plan to bring it to life. It takes access to data and insights that are essential to informed decision-making. It takes the right mix of disciplines to meet business needs while creating the optimum customer experience. And, it requires a holistic approach, using bought, earned, owned and shared media to create a fully integrated engagement plan.

Meeting business objectives month after month takes follow-through. That’s why iCrossing don’t see strategy and planning as a finite deliverable that ends the moment its creative teams starts creating. Offering a full suite of strategic and planning services to help brands connect with customers, from evaluating brand strengths and weaknesses, the company develops plans for creating, activating and managing content across bought, earned, owned and shared channels, using Hearst content and proprietary audience data where appropriate.

iCrossing harmonizes brand strategy, creativity and storytelling with the power of data, technology and performance marketing with its full suite of top-notch services:

• Brand Strategy & Experience Design
• Data Analytics
• SEM Services
• Adverting Campaigns
• Content Marketing
• Website Technology Services
• Programmatic
• Marketing to Hispanics
• Digital Media Planning and Buying
• SEO Services
• Social Media Marketing

iCrossing Case Study

Beam Suntory: The Cocktail Project

iCrossing has been a digital agency partner to Beam Suntory for many years. The company has designed and built websites, grown social communities, creating rich content, and acquired new legal drinking age consumers through performance media and search. It has also partnered with many of the amazing brands at Beam Suntory, including Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, SkinnyGirl, LaPhraoig, and Pinnacle.

One of the most interesting assignments was driving growth for an ingredient brand—DeKuyper—in the fiercely competitive category. iCrossing has found that cocktail drinkers search for recipes to enjoy when celebrating occasions. So, the company designed a new website and social media campaigns focused on occasions - and the cocktails to go with them. As a result, DeKuyper sales increased by 200% in a declining category. And DeKuyper became America’s number one cordial brand.

Building on the strong DeKuyper business results, iCrossing applied the same approach across the entire Beam Suntory portfolio of legendary spirits, creating a consumer-centric digital experience called The Cocktail Project. This premium mobile-first experience features a searchable database of recipes, high-quality photos, video tutorials, and articles—promoting the entire portfolio of Beam Suntory products. In its first seven months, search traffic for The Cocktail Project exceeded that of a top competitor, thebar.com. And, it all started with the insight that what customers really want is to make cocktails to celebrate with people they love.

Mitsubishi Motors: The Fast and Furious

A quick, responsive design to reinvigorate the iconic automotive brand online: Mitsubishi Motors is an iconic automotive brand with a loyal cadre of die-hard fans and a reputation for building innovative and efficient cars. They asked iCrossing to build an equally innovative and efficient website to help catch the attention of younger buyers.

Performance, performance, performance: iCrossing started with a redesign. A bold new look would change perceptions and stand out from the competition. The Responsive + Design methodology made sure it worked and looked great on any PC, tablet or smartphone – with a combination of front-end and server-side technologies to optimize performance and, uniquely, allow iCrossing to serve specific content based on each user’s device.

Visitors could configure their dream Mitsubishi and get a list of actual cars that match, allowing the company to introduce them to a nearby dealer. Many people own more than one Mitsubishi, so iCrossing developed a feature-rich owner section, giving the brand an opportunity to engage them on social media, invite them to events, and help guide future purchases.

Hot rod results: Just three months after going live, Mitsubishi sales saw a record increase of 57% for March, April, and May, far above the 6% average increase for the rest of the industry. Mitsubishicars.com improved 12 positions on the 2014 JD Powers Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study, setting a new standard for automotive sites – and re-establishing this iconic brand in the digital space.

LG Electronics: Introducing the Fabshare

Reinventing how iCrossing share with the LG Optimus G Pro: When iCrossing launched the LG Optimus G Pro, it started with this insight: the G Pro has advanced features that allow people to do more with their pics and videos, and make things that other folks actually want to see. Naturally, iCrossing made quite a big deal about it. And that’s how it turned oversharing into Fabsharing.

Turning oversharing into Fabsharing: iCrossing started by creating an online headquarters – a responsive desktop and mobile site to introduce people to Fabsharing and teach them everything they needed to know about how to turn a mundane share into something truly special. TV spots and supporting online videos spread the news, backed up by a display campaign, over sixty custom media placements and a digital billboard in Times Square. Online, the Bucket List Theatre let visitors explore the phone’s features virtually. The loveable Ms. Fabshare dispensed no-nonsense sharing advice for the socially inept. And the company even partnered with Some cards to help put repeat over-sharers on notice.

Restoring social media’s faded glory: Fabsharing resonated with victims of oversharing everywhere – generating 115 million social engagements and over 5 million video views in two months – helping restore the glory of social media, encouraging sharers to step their game up, and raising awareness of the Optimus G Pro in a fun, dare it say shareable way.

Welcome To The Age Of Machine Storytelling

Being A Retail Rebel in an Age of Disruption

No industry has been in the crosshairs of the digital revolution like retail courtesy of Amazon, the ubiquity of smartphones and the on-demand business model. People have more ways to buy than ever before, contrasted with having zero patience for wasting time with poor service or limited inventory choices.

So with consumers firmly in control and driving what iCrossing like to call the C2B economy, every brand with consumer-direct commerce has to rethink its strategy and cater to the modern needs of its customers.

For most retailers, this shift to a consumer-centered business model – one rooted in unified brand experiences across on and offline– is no easy shift.

• Organizational silos make creating a singular picture of the customer nearly impossible.
• The foundational technology needed to execute modern marketing is still misunderstood and underutilized for many.
• A legacy chasm still exists between brand marketing work and performance-driven campaigns and is held up by retailers’ fixation on last-click attribution models.
• Mobile and other tech innovation like beacons still present challenges for brands.

iCrossing brought together some of the brightest minds for Retail Rebels: The Future of Retail Summit with its partners, Brand Innovators. The event included intel from dozens of leading brands, tech platforms, and retail-focused startups.

This is a pivotal time for retailers to take advantage of the crossroads between technology and the consumer. Providing unified experiences for consumers enables ease of purchase, which drives loyalty and performance over the long haul. Reaching that nirvana is what retailers need to strive for as the new benchmark for success.

Greet the Leader

Mike Parker, Global President, iCrossing: As the Global President of iCrossing, Mike is responsible for the strategic, creative and commercial success of the iCrossing offices around the world. Mike is also responsible for leading iCrossing’s global mobile practice and its large-scale digital media and platform partnerships. Parker joined iCrossing in 2015 as President of iCrossing’s West Coast operations. He was appointed President, U.S., in 2016, managing the growth and success of the agency’s 7 offices across the country.

An eighteen-year veteran of the industry, Mike has helped brands like Nestlé, Microsoft, Intel, and Clorox build deep engagements with their customers. In his most recent role as Chief Digital Officer at McCann WorldGroup, Mike infused digital into McCann’s core, developing capabilities in social media and mobile marketing. Prior to McCann, he served as co-president for Tribal DDB’s U.S. network, where he oversaw significant growth in the agency’s client base. Mike is a three-time winner of Digital Agency of the Year honors and was a member of the inaugural Cannes Innovation Lions jury.

“Audiences and content are the currencies we use to drive connections for our clients.”