Final Paper

Abigail Menard
New Media II
Prof. Klinkowstein
5/13/08


“Everything that can be digital, will be.” This was the motto Craig Kanarick and Jeff Dachis were following when they founded their company, Razorfish, in 1995. By recognizing the potential future impact of digital technology, Craig and Jeff were able to create a company that would thrive over the next 5 years. Razorfish was an interactive marketing and technology services firm based in New York and one of the founding members of the area known as Silicon Alley. The firm’s early success grouped it with four other fast growing e-consulting companies and they became known as “The Fast Five;” however, by 2000 “The Fast Five” was strongly affected by a negative turn in Internet marketing, and Razorfish’s revenues fell. In 2004 Razorfish was acquired by SBI Group then subsequently by aQuantive, a large Seattle based advertising agency, in the same year. Thus from the union of Razorfish, the largest interactive marketing and technology services firm and Avenue A, the largest buyer of online media and search, Avenue A | Razorfish was born. Microsoft also recently acquired aQuantive in 2007, making it a wholly owned subsidiary, and therefore adding Avenue A | Razorfish to the Microsoft family.
With the pooled resources of Avenue A and Razorfish, Avenue A | Razorfish has blossomed into one of the largest interactive agencies in the United States. It serves to better the advertising outreach of many well-known companies through their use of digital technologies. Some of the larger companies Avenue A | Razorfish has done work for include Best Buy, Capital One, Dell, JCPenney, Microsoft, Nike, Toyota, Visa, and many more. With Avenue A | Razorfish ‘s creative processes none of these companies seemed disappointed and Visa is even quoted as stating, “Working with them has encouraged us to push for new boundaries in the marketing promotions arena. Their strategic thinking always makes me think that no matter what the problem, we can find a solution.” Avenue A | Razorfish offers sample works of many of its clients on its website, as well as some breakdowns of how they solved the problems individual companies presented.
As far how Avenue A | Razorfish has such a successful company and such satisfied customers, it is because they believe I developed a client’s website from all facets and not just one. The have 5 different categories in which they focus their attention: interactive marketing, customer focused websites, e-commerce, intranets and extranets, and branding and identity. By concentrating their skills and resources on the company, the customers, the products, the employees, and the brand Avenue A | Razorfish gives their clients a full makeover to better their companies. Avenue A | Razorfish especially focuses on customers. Their extensive research into the client, target audience, an digital outreach provides them with knowledge, but then they apply their skills to make it work to their client’s advantage. Their goal is to bring their customer closer to their target audience and they do this through their process called the Customer Experience Journey. Through their six-step plan that integrates technology and consumers they believe they are able to access the best resources of the Internet and apply them in the ways that are most advantageous to both the company and consumer. Overall Avenue A | Razorfish was first able to successfully take advantage of the growing digital market and continued to improve upon its use of the resources the digital market provided in order to constantly better all facets of the company and customer experience.