Head New Media

Head New Media was an influential[1] web design and interactive television agency set up in the UK in 1997. In 1998 it became[2] the UK digital arm of the world's fourth largest advertising group Lowe Worldwide, part of Interpublic. The agency was at one point the most awarded in Europe[3] and produced an 'in-house' website Head-Space which won awards including Cannes and in 2011 was listed by Management Today as being one of Ten Websites That Changed the World and a precursor to YouTube.[4] In 1998 the UK's first specialist interactive television creative agency Head End was set up as a wholly owned subsidiary (later acquired by Underwired[5]).

Head New Media's clients included the BBC, Sci-Fi Channel, Unilever (for which the agency produced interactive television advertising on cable operator NTL), Tesco (one of the first interactive TV ads[6] on Flextech[7]), General Motors, Mars Confectionery's Snickers (whose website Snickers MegaBite[8] won a variety of major global advertising awards between 1997-8) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Its original founders were Felix Velarde and Jason Holland, previously of HyperInteractive (1994–1997) and, following Head New Media's liquidation[9] in 2001, Underwired.[10]

The agency was the subject of a BBC documentary[11] made in 1999 by Uden Associates. The documentary is still occasionally broadcast in Europe as part of BBC Worldwide's business education strand.

References

  1. ↑ "Annual Listing of Top Design Shops" from IPPA
  2. ↑ "Campaign Report on New Media" from Management Today
  3. ↑ "IMG SRC100" from SHIFT(JAPAN), 1998
  4. ↑ "Management Today"
  5. ↑ "Underwired acquires Head End Interactive Television" from Creative Match, December 2002
  6. ↑ "Digital, Interactive and Web TV" from Managing Change, 2000
  7. ↑ "iTV Developers & Agencies" from BroadbandBananas
  8. ↑ "Snickers MegaBite" Archive of website
  9. ↑ "Feature: Head closes after ad partnership crumbles" from E-consultancy, 2001
  10. ↑ Underwired's website
  11. ↑ The Crunch, first broadcast 1999 BBC Two, 2001 MSN TV
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