Blue 449 Wins BASF’s Global Corporate Image Campaign Business

Blue 449 has been appointed by BASF to manage the media communications for its global corporate image campaign, following a four-way pitch. It is the first global win for the newly launched network Blue 449, the Open Source Media Agency.

The appointment will see Blue 449 manage all paid-media communications activity for the campaign across a total of 18 markets, including UK, France, US, China, India and Spain. The work will cover the evolution of the ‘We Create Chemistry’ campaign started in 2010 and will see Blue 449 provide a full range of integrated paid-media services through its Open Source approach.

BASF is the largest chemical producer in the world and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany.  The BASF Group comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries and operates six integrated production sites and 390 other production sites in Europe, Asia, Australia, Americas, and Africa.  BASF has customers in over 200 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries.

Anja Herb, Director Brand Strategy & Implementation, at BASF, said: “The Blue 449 way of working fitted our ambition of more closely aligning media decisions with business ones, while looking to the future and working with us to establish a new working model around talent, technology and transparency. Blue 449’s proposition is unique and stood out for its new approach to the challenges the communication industry is facing today.”

James Shoreland, Global Managing Director, Blue 449, said: “This is a significant and symbolic appointment in the way it embodies the changes taking place in both our industries.  The chemicals industry is looking at both the opportunities and the challenges it faces in an era of unprecedented transparency and availability of information.  Our fresh, Open Source way of working across the world is ideally suited to addressing those challenges and creating competitive advantage for BASF.”

Blue 449 - part of the ZenithOptimedia group - was launched in March of this year, which saw the rebranding of Walker Media to Blue 449 UK and the opening of the French office. Since then, Blue 449 has opened offices in Italy, Germany and Australia, and will have a total of 17 city hubs by the end of this year. The new network operates collaboratively with the other ZenithOptimedia brands - Zenith, Optimedia, Performics, Newcast, Moxie and Ninah - and also benefits from access to the extensive range of services within VivaKi and Publicis Groupe. Blue 449’s operating framework for clients is called Open Source, with collaborative, open-source behaviours informing the network’s relationships with media and technology partners, and influencing its approach to planning and the digital economy.