Avenue A/Razorfish

Avenue A | Razorfish Inc. is one of the world's largestFact|date=September 2008 interactive agencies and is an operating unit of Seattle-based aQuantive, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. Avenue A | Razorfish works with companies to build websites and the digital marketing programs that drive traffic to them. The company works in numerous digital areas, including advertising, web design & development, intranets / extranets, search engine marketing, email marketing, and emerging media.

Avenue A | Razorfish has about 2,000 employees worldwide, with U.S. offices in New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Portland, Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Austin, and Fort Lauderdale. In 2005-2007, it expanded overseas through acquisitions in London [ [http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/operations-customer/5166268-1.html Avenue A / Razorfish Acquires U.K.-based Interactive Marketing Agency, DNA, 6 December, 2005] ] , Paris [ [http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625178 Avenue A / Razorfish Snaps Up French Agency, 7 March 2007] ] , Sydney, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Berlin, Frankfurt [ [http://www.dmnews.com/Avenue-ARazorfish-Enters-Germany-With-Neue-Digitale-Buy/article/92267/ Avenue A/Razorfish Enters Germany With Neue Digitale Buy, 9 August, 2006] ] and a joint venture in Tokyo [ [http://www.marketingvox.com/avenue-arazorfish-adds-japanese-outpost-026543/ Avenue A/Razorfish Adds Japanese Outpost 17 January, 2007] ] . Avenue A | Razorfish clients include AT&T, Capital One, AstraZeneca, Best Buy, Carnival Cruise Lines, CondéNet, Ford Motor Company, Disney, Kraft, EMC , Kodak, Williams Sonoma, Adidas, JPMorgan Chase, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and the Wall Street Journal.

Awards

Ad Age named Avenue A | Razorfish 2005 media agency of the year.Fact|date=September 2008 Forrester Research ranked it as a top-tier web design agency in its 2006 Web Design Agency Shootout. Its work for Mercedes-AMG won the 2006 Webby Award for Best Automotive Site, and its redesign of NYTimes.com has garnered a 2007 Webby for Best Newspaper Site. Fact|date=February 2007

History

Beginnings

Razorfish was founded in New York in 1995 by Craig Kanarick and Jeff Dachis with the motto "Solutions to Hard Problems." and was originally headquarted at Jeff's apartment in Alphabet City in Manhattan. A few months later, they moved in to an office at 580 Broadway with three other employees. Their first project was to build a website for the New York Botanical Gardens, which was paid for by Time Warner, from the Time Warner Book Series division. They were one of the first companies to have an animated homepage, utilizing the "server-push" capabilities of the latest version of the Netscape browser. Because of this and aggressive marketing tactics, their work became well known, well-respected, and the firm grew quickly over the next few years. Soon thereafter, they received a strategic investment from Omnicom (along with other New Media pioneers, Agency.com, Red Sky Interactive, Think New Ideas and Organic), making them one of the first firms to be financed by a traditional media holding company. Razorfish used this money to move to new offices, redesign their branding (to include the slogan "Everything that can be digital will be.") and expand operations. It and other New York-based Web design companies formed the core of a cluster of New Media companies known as Silicon Alley. In September 1998, Razorfish made its first of what was to be many acquisitions, by purchasing Avalanche Systems. In 1998, Razorfish acquired Plastic in San Francisco, and London-based CHBi, and Los Angeles-based media and then merged with Scandinavian interactive leader, Spray, which had offices in Sweden, Finland and Norway, making the company a true international player.

In April 1999, the company had an IPO which raised $48 million at $16 per share.

At its peak, the company had $260 M in annual revenueFact|date=February 2007, and a market capitalization of over $6 billion. Its early success led it to be included in what the industry dubbed "The Fast Five," a group of "e-consultancies" that also included Scient, Viant, iXL Enterprises and USWeb/CKS, which was bought and rebranded MarchFirst. The "Fast Five" was affected negatively by the downturn in the Dot-com bubble which began in 2000, and Razorfish saw its revenues plunge to $50.1 million during that year. In February of 2001, Razorfish laid off 400 employees, roughly 20 percent of its staff, with its stock price descending from a February 2000 high of $57 to just $1 per share.

Razorfish, Inc. was eventually acquired by SBI Group (formerly SBI and Company) in 2003 it was renamed to SBI.Razorfish. The company was again renamed as Avenue A | Razorfish when the SBI.Razorfish division of the SBI Group (formerly SBI and Company) was acquired by aQuantive, Inc in 2004.

SBI also purchased other assets from "The Fast Five," including Scient/iXL, MarchFirst (formerly USWeb & CKS Group), Emerald Solutions, Lante, and Xcelerate.

The Avenue A | Razorfish combination in 2004 resulted in an interactive agency which according to Ad Age had the highest interactive revenue in the US in 2005, at $189.8 million. [ [http://adage.com/article?article_id=108866 TOP 50 INTERACTIVE AGENCIES - Advertising Age - DataCenter: Agencies ] April 28, 2006 (Revised June 5, 2006)]

Acquisition by Microsoft

Microsoft announced on May 18, 2007 its intention to acquire Avenue A | Razorfish as part of a $6.0 billion cash purchase of parent company aQuantive. [ [http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may07/05-18Advertising.mspx Microsoft Press Release, 18 May 2007] ] The transaction closed on August 10, 2007. Continuing under the leadership of Clark Kokich, Avenue A | Razorfish is now part of Microsoft's newly created Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group. The APS Group is run by Brian McAndrews, formerly CEO of aQuantive, who reports directly to Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's Platforms & Services Division (PSD).

References

External links

* [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.09/razorfish.html Brattitude Adjustment] - Wired Magazine, September 2000

Official sites

* [http://www.avenuea-razorfish.com/ Avenue A | Razorfish]
* [http://www.aquantive.com/ aQuantive] (parent company)
* [http://www.aa-rf.co.uk Avenue A | Razorfish UK] - London Office for Avenue A Razorfish
* [http://www.e-crusade.com/ e-Crusade] - Hong Kong & China Office for Avenue A Razorfish
* [http://www.amnesia.com.au Amnesia Group] - Australian Office for Avenue A Razorfish
* [http://www.neue-digitale.de/ Neue Digitale] - German Office for Avenue A Razorfish
* [http://www.duke-interactive.com/ duke] - French Office for Avenue A Razorfish
* [http://www.digitalpalette.co.jp/index.html Dentsu/Avenue A/Razorfish] - Japanese Firm that has an alliance with AARF