Evans Scott Hunt sets up multimedia service

Direct Line agency Evans Scott Hunt is setting up a multimedia arm to service all its clients.

Zinc will offer new media design, marketing, strategy and programming and will have exclusive access to ESH’s client list which includes Microsoft, United Airlines, Tesco, BMW, Ionica and British Gas.

The company, which plans to build up its own client list, will work on CD-ROMs, interactive kiosks and the Internet. It is currently creating BMW’s global website and has just launched a mortgage website for NatWest. Design, programming and database integration are all developed in-house.

“We have set up Zinc because we believe gathering data and building dialogue with customers is the principal use of all new media. But so far nobody has brought serious direct marketing disciplines to the field,” says EHS executive creative director Terry Hunt, who has spent the last year setting up the company.

Zinc will operate with ten full-time staff and will work with a pool of freelances, says one of its three directors Georgia Hall. Its other directors are Kirk Goble and Ken Frakes, who is heading up design and programming. As part of the French conglomerate Havas, Zinc is a sister company to Realtime Studio, which is also partly owned by EHS.