Ready for Layout

McCann-Erickson is sold on a transition to Adobe InDesign.

McCann-Erickson, reportedly the world's largest advertising agency, must be one tough customer for vendors pitching new wares, right?

Well, yes and no. Sure, the agency demands top quality, performance and value from any investment, but it's also always on the lookout for emerging goods and services that might give the company a competitive edge.

McCann-Erickson's New York City creative and production studio is especially aggressive in regard to technology investigation and implementation. "Our philosophy has been to drive issues and solutions," states Warren Vegas, vice president and production studio manager. "When we see a technology [with great potential], we like to be involved with its development from the ground floor. We want to drive it so it'll do what we want it to do."

A prime example of the agency's preference for the driver's seat, as well as its desire to forge close partnerships with its vendors, is its ongoing involvement with InDesign, the new page layout and design program from Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA.

Driving InDesign

The New York City studio began testing InDesign when the software was in its early beta stages. "We've been playing with [InDesign] for about a year and a half," Vegas reports. "We worked on K2 [which became version 1.0] and will help with future versions. We've given Adobe a lot of input throughout the process."

McCann-Erickson was immediately receptive to the idea of InDesign because, Vegas explains, "With the exception of Quark-XPress for page layout, everything else we use [for ad creation] is from Adobe: Illustrator, Photoshop

and Acrobat."

The agency's decision to test the new product was based on its success with other Adobe offerings, its interest in achieving tighter integration among those programs (and increased productivity overall) and its strong relationship with the Adobe organization.