| Company type | Arm of Lowes Worldwide, an Interpublic company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Web design Interactive television |
| Founded | 1997 in the United Kingdom |
| Founders | Felix Velarde Jason Michael Holland |
| Defunct | 2001 |
| Fate | Liquidated |
Head New Media was an influential [1] web design and interactive television agency set up in the UK in 1997. In 1998 it became [2] the UK digital arm of the world's fourth largest advertising group Lowe Worldwide, part of Interpublic. The agency was at one point the most awarded in Europe [3] and produced an 'in-house' website Head-Space which won awards including Cannes and in 2011 was listed by Management Today as being one of Ten Websites That Changed the World and a precursor to YouTube. [4] In 1998 the UK's first specialist interactive television creative agency Head End was set up as a wholly owned subsidiary (later acquired by Underwired [5] ).
Head New Media's clients included the BBC, Sci-Fi Channel, Unilever (for which the agency produced interactive television advertising on cable operator NTL), Tesco (one of the first interactive TV ads [6] on Flextech [7] ), General Motors, Mars Confectionery's Snickers (whose website Snickers MegaBite [8] won a variety of major global advertising awards between 1997-8) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Its original founders were Felix Velarde and Jason Holland, previously of HyperInteractive (1994–1997) and, following Head New Media's liquidation [9] in 2001, Underwired. [10]
The agency was the subject of a BBC documentary Keeping Creative [11] an episode of The Crunch, made in 1999 by Uden Associates. The documentary is still occasionally broadcast in Europe as part of BBC Worldwide's business education strand.