Thinkbox
Thinkbox was launched in February 2005 with a consortium consisting of eight companies, and was initially run as a virtual organisation.
Thinkbox was named Media360’s Industry Body of the Decade [3] and its TV advertising, particularly that featuring ‘Harvey’ the dog, has won many awards.
[5] Structurally, Thinkbox began as a virtual organisation, lacking both a dedicated executive body and physical headquarters.
[6] Instead of a dedicated executive, the staff working on the project were overseen by a committee consisting of representatives of each of the eight member organisations, and Thinkbox was initially chaired by ITV's Justin Sampson.
Following Samson's departure from ITV, the role of chair was passed to Channel 4's Andy Barnes and Tess Alps was appointed as the chief executive officer in April of that year.
[13] In spite of rumours in the first half of 2007 that ITV were considering removing their support from Thinkbox,[14] the remaining seven companies continued to be a part of the organisation.
Thinkbox commission and produces regular research focused on issues and trends surrounding television advertising and viewing habits.
Recent studies include "Signalling Success" (2020), an analysis of advertising's signalling effect which revealed how media channels differ in their ability to communicate vital brand signs; "Demand Generation" (2019), an award-winning meta-analysis of econometric models conducted by WPP’s MediaCom, Wavemaker and Gain Theory, which resulted in the creation of the "Demand Generator", the first freely available industry planning tool that puts meaningful econometric data in the hands of advertisers of all shapes and sizes;[20] and the award-winning "Profit Ability: the business case for advertising" (2018) by Ebiquity and Gain Theory which quantified advertising's short and long term business impact.
The result was the hiring of Red Brick Road, who were engaged to handle Thinkbox's advertising, online and direct marketing requirements.
[11] In 2008 Thinkbox went further, hiring MediaCom to handle their media buying and planning, as well as to provide strategic advice.
In this new ad, Harvey used emotional story-telling to change his owner's behaviour dramatically and persuade him not to throw away his best friend and constant companion, a stuffed toy called Rabbit.
Harvey suddenly appears and plays a TV ad telling the story of how he and Rabbit became friends and the scrapes they’ve got into together over the years.
The ad tells the story of the Tooth Fairy’s struggle to build her collections and deliveries business until her decision to advertise on TV takes it to a whole new level.
It was designed in collaboration with broadcasters, agencies and advertisers to help boost critical skills and knowledge across the industry.
Just a week after its launch on 12 October 2020, over 2,000 people from across the media and marketing industry signed up to Thinkbox’s TV Masters training course.
Recent events include 'Screen Life: TV in Demand', 'TV Nation', 'POETIC: connecting paid, owned and earned media', 'TV Creativity: the art of the heart', and 'Advertising Effectiveness: the long and short of it'
