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“Building Best Brands” – Serviceplan is Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2016

The Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2016 has been chosen: Serviceplan has won the day in the Red Dot Award: Communication Design. With its innovative campaigns, this partner-led agency proved to be the strongest service provider as demonstrated by its 11 Red Dot and five Red Dot: Best of the Best awards in this year’s competition.

The “House of Communication” concept

Every successful agency needs to have a meta-concept. In the case of Serviceplan, it is a move away from the notion of the classic advertising agency as we know it to a “House of Communication”. This term is intended to reflect the unusually wide service offering of the group from brand strategy, to web design, online, dialogue and CRM marketing, as well as public relations or sales. This full-service provider brings together the full communication portfolio under one roof.

The agency’s concept is summed up as follows by Alexander Schill, chief creative officer of the Serviceplan Group: “One approach is for companies or customers to search out a number of small individual agencies and co-ordinate them on their own, hoping that they will all work together well without being big-headed about it. Or they can choose a somewhat larger agency, a house of communication in the broadest sense, and be looked after by a one-stop shop. In that case, everything is coordinated and works smoothly right from the start, without requiring elaborate management. There are arguments in favour of both options. We opted for the latter one.”

“Building Best Brands” since 1970

Serviceplan was founded more than 40 years ago by Dr. Peter Haller and Rolf O. Stempel. The guiding business principle of the group is a shareholding programme for partners. Its aim is to ensure that agency holdings are not sold to other networks. The overarching holding is managed by Florian Haller, Dr. Peter Haller, Ronald Focken, Dr. Fabian Prüschenk and Alexander Schill.

Today, Serviceplan has more than 40 specialist companies sub-divided into five brand areas: Serviceplan, Mediaplus, Facit, Plan.Net and Solutions. With customers such as BMW, Saturn, Deutsche Telekom and many others, the agency group is among the international innovative communication elite. Nowadays, Serviceplan employs more than 3,100 people at more than 35 sites in the world’s largest cities. Their common mission is “Building Best Brands”. The goal: sustainable brand success.

“There are an immense number of agencies on both the German market and indeed on markets across the world. Holding one’s own in this competitive environment is not easy, particularly when you consider the fast moving nature of today’s communication industry,” says Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of Red Dot. “Serviceplan’s concept of offering a holistic communication approach as well as interdisciplinary services is a winning solution. That is borne out not only by the numerous awards the agency has won in the Red Dot Design Award, but also by the agency group’s customer portfolio. The ability successfully to work with companies for decades and jointly explore new horizons with some the world’s largest brands is what I call a highly sustainable company policy. I am therefore delighted that this year’s honorary title ‘Red Dot: Agency of the Year’ goes to Serviceplan.”

Alexander Schill emphasises the importance of the award to Serviceplan: “Good design is today the first step in reaching people. A correct message incorrectly packaged is worthless, particularly with regard to digital media and the speed at which they are consumed. I am therefore especially pleased about winning the ‘Red Dot: Agency of the Year’ award.”

Red Dot Gala in Berlin

On 4 November 2016 the best of the best will be honoured at the Red Dot Gala in Berlin. The highlight of the evening is the presentation of the “Stylus” to the Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2016, which will be handed over to the Serviceplan team by last year’s winner, Leo Burnett. After the award ceremony, over 1,400 international guests will celebrate the winners at the Designers’ Night in Berlin’s E-Werk. For one night only, the official after show party will also host the exclusive winners’ exhibition “Design on Stage”.

Dates:

Red Dot Gala
4 November 2016
Konzerthaus Berlin
Germany

Designers' Night & winners' exhibition “Design on Stage”
4 November 2016
E-Werk Berlin
Germany

Exhibition “Best Communication Design - Red Dot Winners Selection 2016”
6 November 2016 to 15 January 2017
Museum for Communication Berlin
Germany