Launching the Remarkable: Team One

da Dasha Ovsyannikova

Team One
Advertising/Full Service/Integrata
Los Angeles, Stati Uniti
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How and when was your agency founded?

Team One was founded in 1987 in Los Angeles, CA. Born within the walls of Saatchi & Saatchi as an internal task-force created to launch the Lexus brand, the agency was founded on the recognition that special brands deserve genuinely special advertising. Since then, we have been fortunate enough to work with some of the world’s greatest premium brands and have grown to nearly 500 people across five U.S. offices.

 

How have you carved out your own culture within Publicis?

Within Publicis Groupe, Team One is the only agency dedicated to serving premium brands and affluent audiences. We’re also different in that we are fully integrated, with deep capabilities across many functions, all under one roof. This unique focus has shaped our culture built on a spirit of collaboration: all of us together, using our unique powers for the greater good. 

 

What is your agency’s superpower?

Team One is an expert at Launching the Remarkable.

We put the same rigor into creating remarkable solutions in the way our clients engineer remarkable products and services. Remarkable ideas that are worth sharing and holding on to—endure for the long-term. Conventionally, most agencies start out answering short-term problems with short-term solutions for their clients. Unconventionally, Team One begins by identifying where a brand aspires to be in 10-30 years. We build today’s solutions in support of tomorrow’s ambitions.

 

Why would a client choose your agency?

Team One specializes in building high-value brands that last, and we are experts at designing strong strategic platforms that serve not only as a guide for creative and communications but also as a roadmap for future business decisions. We build brand legacies: those designed to stay relevant for a lifetime. We believe that a long-term foundation can guide better short-term choices. As an ideas-based organization, we are experts in designing strong strategic foundations that have fueled decades of success for some of the world’s most remarkable brands.

In recent selections, our clients chose Team One because of category expertise, our full-service capabilities and integrated model, and our people.

 

What is your view of the current climate in terms of new business opportunities? 

We are incredibly optimistic about new business. Part of that simply comes from our culture of optimism (it's actually on every one of our job descriptions). But it also comes from what we are seeing right now: potential clients coming out of the haze of the last 6 months and being ready for new solutions. You can feel it in the rush of opportunities coming right now – and in the pent-up energy that marketers have to define a new future.

 

Tell us about the latest work you've released. 

In the last 30 days, we’ve released new work for clients including Lexus, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, and Expedia. Since we kicked off work with Ste. Michelle Wine Estates as agency of record in January, we have launched campaigns for several their iconic wine brands, two recent examples include: 

Intrinsic Wine Co.’s challenger mentality is center stage in the brand’s first major integrated campaign "Challenge Everything". Leaning on the talents of stencil artist Matthew Curran, the most notable part of the work is a stop motion film that depicts a series of spray paint stencils animating along a gritty brick wall. 

 

Chateau Ste. Michelle's “Chateau Your Holidays”, draws on the desire to bring style back into our lives for the holidays, tired of the loungewear we’ve been donning for most of the year. The new seasonal campaign captures that sentiment, encouraging consumers to dress up their holiday table. The playful spot emanates joy, wonder, and elegance in an otherwise lackluster year. 

 

We also recently launched a new ad campaign for Expedia that the team was very proud of. The brand recognizes that supporting travelers begins long before they book their trip—it begins the moment they start to dream. At the center of the initiative was the “Stop Motion. Start Traveling” spot, which captured that longing to explore and discover. The spot used stop motion to bring that sense of wonder to life, featuring a real-life couple who uses found objects from the world inside their apartment to explore the world beyond their front door.

 


How have you been able to nurture your culture during the pandemic?

Since day one, we have reiterated that our employees come first, then our clients, and then our business as a whole. Our primary focus is our employees’ safety and comfort during this pandemic. Flexibility has been our motto and making sure that people stay and feel connected has been extremely important as well. Our guiding theme has been ‘communication.” Lots of communication. Not letting our people recede into the solitude of home offices, but staying connected through many all company meetings, weekly emails with resources for our employees, and yes- Zoom happy hours, too. We have been consistently staying connected at a distance.