SF Interactive has won online advertising duties for Wind River Systems, a company that plans a major Internet push to sell its line of integrated software platforms for business.
Sources said the win is a big one for the shop as the client is slated to spend a substantial portion of its $10 million advertising budget online in 2003.
Agency chairman and CEO Bruce Carlisle said the 40-person San Francisco shop won the account without a review based on a recommendation. "Winning Wind River's business [shows] our strength in b-to-b tech marketing," Carlisle said. SFI will design all online ads for the Alameda, Calif., client. The shop will also handle e-mail marketing, consulting and other services. Online work is expected to break next month.
Wind River, founded in 1981, services sectors such as automotive, industrial and aerospace and defense. It has traditionally focused its marketing on reaching decision makers in business, and is expected to continue in that vein.
The client's director of online marketing, Robert Carroll, said he was impressed with SFI's ability to identify and reach the target audience. "They clearly understand the role of marketing in building a dialog with both developers and business decision makers," he said. "They have all the tools to execute across the board."
San Francisco agency Jumbo Shrimp won Wind River's overall branding account in May and is expected to break new work before the end of the year.
Separately, SFI last week promoted three executives to management positions. Karen Gordon and Patrick Spargur were named co-creative directors, and Andy Sims was named media director.
Gordon and Spargur have been with the agency since 1999, most recently as associate creative directors. Gordon previously worked as a senior copywriter at Cohn & Wells on such accounts as Cisco, Sony, Microsoft and Miraval Resort. She also worked on the client side with Adobe and Oracle. Spargur earlier worked as an art director for Agency.com on such accounts as Hewlett-Packard, Pacific Bell, PG&E, Netscape and Intel.
Sims also joined the agency in 1999. He most recently worked as associate media director.