A meeting on the sand

Another FT piece that looks at a ad agency located in Mallorca. Their business model, excluding the place issue, is progressive -- no retainer, shoestring budgets, transparent accounting. The location was chosen for a number of deliberate reasons, primarily related to their business approach. Another in the continuing saga of "why do I need to locate where everyone else is located?"

Special Reports /Creative Business
Your room is here, by the beach
By Alex Benady
Published: June 2 2003 21:43 | Last Updated: June 2 2003 21:43

Picture the scene. It?s 7.00 am. The sun streams in through the shutters. It?s too hot and bright to sleep, so you stumble out of bed for some coffee. There in the kitchen is the account planner from your ad agency, eating breakfast.

Most marketers would admit, albeit under duress, that they couldn?t live without their ad agency. But that doesn?t mean they want to live with them. That, however, is exactly what is expected of clients at Welcome to Orange County, an ad agency set up by four Scandinavian advertising executives, for marketers with pan-European aspirations.

...If the prospect is underwhelming, the good news is that WtOC is located in the pretty town of Caller, on the northern coast of Mallorca. Clients are put up in one of four architect-designed guest suites, with 20ft ceilings and 12ft windows, carved out of an old cloth-dyeing factory.

...It is tempting to dismiss their ?way of working? as little more than a clever rationale for a bunch of scamsters intent on the good life. But while there is undoubtedly a quality-of-life argument, there are also powerful business reasons for being in Mallorca, claims Wastberg.

For one thing, it?s accessible. ?If you are doing pan-European work, you have to locate somewhere and there will always be lots of travel involved. Mallorca is only a couple of hours flight from anywhere in Europe and there are many flights a day to most countries from Palma.?

It?s also cheap. With the advent of budget airlines, travel costs are possibly lower than for other locations. Property costs are also significantly lower than in more established cities, (how else could WtOC afford to put up clients?), as are local labour costs.

...So far, WtOC has devised the launch of a global liqueur brand, developed a new brand strategy for furniture giant Ikea in Denmark, and plotted the pan-European debut of an online digital business service called Chambersign. ...

Bundling Distribution and Products

Tim Oren brought this to my attention as an example of combining distribution with services/products:

Tropos Networks unveils technology for Wi-Fi ‘hot zones’

May 21 12:47:00, 2003
By EMILY MOTSAY

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Tropos Networks Inc., formerly operating in stealth mode as FHP Wireless Inc., has unveiled its new Tropos technology, products and services to enable metro-scale deployments of Wi-Fi technology, offering end users wireless broadband access to data from wide public areas.

Tropos’ goal is .....

Click here to view complete article.

Wi-Fi in Half Moon Bay

There's an interesting little piece in Wired News about Wi-Fi in Half Moon Bay. A local ISP has created a network covering the entire downtown, and argues that such wide area coverage will be a viable alternative to the cafe hotspot model:

Some Starbucks coffee shops, several McDonalds' restaurants in New York and other businesses across the country have rolled out Wi-Fi service. But customers must sit near Wi-Fi access points situated throughout the businesses in order to use the services.... "Starbucks will only cover inside of Starbucks," said Eric Gotfrid, director of operations for Coastside. "We figure we can go head-to-head with them."

Update 21 May 2003: The New York Times reports that the head of Tropos Networks, which set up the hotspots in Half Moon Bay, is run by the son of one of the creators of the futuristic cartoon The Jetsons.