THE OVAL OFFICE CELEBRATES 5 YEARS OF LIVE COMMUNICATION IN BELGIUM

Five years after the agency introduced Live Communication in Belgium, The Oval Office celebrates its birthday with the launch of a new website, an even more extensive version of their annual magazine and a client event with guest of honour Cody Keenan, Barack Obama’s Director Speechwriter. The agency that started in 2012 with the mission to 'make people experience brands' through strategic and creative communication campaigns, engaging events and surprising brand activations counts 50 employees today and is active in 3 offices (Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels). Brands such as Actiris, Apple, Bayer, BMW, bpost bank, Brussels-Capital Region, the European Commission, Jobat, Knauf, Mediahuis Connect, Nintendo, Seat, Sibelga, Stand Antwerpen, Stad Gent and the Flemish Government have become loyal fans in the meantime. Various campaigns have been awarded to The Oval Office at national and international event and communication festivals. The Oval Office has now worked its way up to the Top 15 of ACC member agencies.

The Oval Office meets The Oval Office

Last Friday, The Oval Office celebrated its 5th anniversary in the presence of about 200 clients and co-workers during an event in Hôtel de la Poste located on the Tour & Taxis site, where the Brussels office of the agency is also situated. The guest of honour at this exclusive birthday celebration was Cody Keenan, President Obama’s Chief Speechwriter from 2013 up till now.

Often described as the ‘Hemingway’, but also the ‘Springsteen’ of the White House, during more than 3500 live events Keenan has produced the most memorable and inspiring speeches of our recent political history, in collaboration with Obama. During the event, Cody Keenan talked about ‘the power of authentic storytelling and live communication’ and gave the audience personal tips about writing an effective and successful speech.

Make people experience brands

The concept of ‘Live communication’ that The Oval Office introduced in 2012 brings live (events and brand activation) and communication (strategic communication, advertising, digital marketing, PR and content marketing) together under one roof.

‘Live and communication work differently, when it comes to the approach of a briefing to the financial model. Based on the motto “making people experience brands”, we have joined these two elements and done something that no one else has done before’, says Ken Koeklenberg, managing partner. ‘We didn’t have any examples and created our own craft so to speak.’

Integrated and ambitious

In the meantime, The Oval Office counts 50 experts and has offices in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. The customer portfolio has also grown strongly during the last 5 years, both in number as well as diversity. Today, the agency works for about 40 commercial and institutional brands on diverse projects including branding, internal communication, external communication (B2C and B2B), event marketing, brand activation, digital marketing, PR and content marketing. Research set up by the agency in 2016 confirms that the market believes in Live Communication and proves that half of Belgian marketers use Live Communication and expect a vast growth for this integrated means of communication.

Wouter Boits, managing partner: ‘We have invested in an excellent infrastructure and the optimisation of our concept during the last couple of years. Now that we have fine-tuned this, we would like to further explore and grow in each one of our areas of expertise. This means investing in people; to do this, we will look for the best people on the market. This stage will anchor us even more strongly as a company and will also enable us to consolidate our growth consistently.’