Limetree claims that an innovative outsourcing model gets results, writes Emmet Oliver.

Ann Corcoran (35) says she is different from most Irish chief executives. She is young and female for starters. Her company, she adds, is different from most of its industry peers. It does not have any full-time staff and depends entirely on an unusual outsourcing model.

On both counts being different appears to be paying off, at least so far. Limetree, a new kind of advertising agency set up in 2002, has already picked up contracts from companies such as Stein Travel, Jameson, Allianz Direct, Peugeot, First Call Direct and the Fitzwilliam Hotel.

Recently Ms Corcoran, from north Tipperary, was described as one of Europe's top 40 young achievers by Media and Marketing Europe, the Emap-owned magazine for the European advertising industry.

While happy to describe Limetree as "the only advertising agency in Ireland founded and run by a woman", Ms Corcoran believes her approach to advertising and marketing is unique for other reasons.

She explains that Limetree is essentially based on the core idea "that small but powerful teams of advertising and marketing professionals can help to achieve the objectives of businesses".

In other words, clients come to Limetree and Limetree then sub-contracts out the work to about 50 professionals in the required disciplines.

The people who do the work are mainly experienced industry figures who are now freelance or operating as small businesses.

The list of disciplines available needs to be extensive in order to serve each client, says Ms Corcoran, and it includes public relations, sponsorship, design, advertising, market research, online branding and below-the-line activity.

While she is reluctant to say it directly, what it appears to mean is: out with the old traditional agency and in with outsourcing.

Ms Corcoran says that, in five years, such a model will be commonplace.

"I believe by then Limetree will be seen as the evolution of advertising," she says.

While the model espoused by Ms Corcoran has yet to convince everyone, she has enough contacts in the advertising and marketing worlds to feel fairly confident that it will gather serious momentum in the years ahead.

Her first two jobs - at the advertising agency, Golley Slater, and the Regional Newspaper Advertising Bureau (RNAB) - taught her that even the most open-minded executives can dismiss certain sectors with a simple wave of the hand.

During her time in RNAB she certainly found this out. "At that time, regional newspapers were not really on the radar screen. They just weren't sexy. Some senior people in agencies told me, if they had their way, they would take local papers off their schedules altogether. But from my point of view it was great experience and it got me into all the agencies in town," she recalls.

Ms Corcoran later joined Statoil as a brand manager and launched the brand into the Irish market. She also produced the model for Statoil's highly successful retail concept, Fareplay.

She then joined Eircom Net as head of marketing and was responsible for marketing various emerging technologies to the consumer, SME and corporate sectors.

While she enjoyed her time at Eircom, she had already spotted the chance to set up her own business and in February 2002 Limetree was born. The name, she says, suggests reliability, but also renewal, hence the tree imagery.

She says clients need to know they are working with an agency with an open mind. "We are not a television agency, or a radio agency or whatever, we realise that each client has an individual requirement".

While reluctant to reduce everything to cost, she acknowledges that getting value and what she calls "accountability" from the marketing spend is the key requirement.

"What we are asking and what we talk to clients about is how can you leverage each part of the marketing mix. Whether it's below-the-line or media buying or public relations, it shouldn't be any different," she states.

"We all love putting people in boxes. But the client's world does not exist in boxes," Ms Corcoran says firmly.

She says a problem encountered by everyone in the marketing and advertising industries is a perception, among some business people, that what they do is somehow a little "frothy".

"We simply have to change the perception there is among some financial controllers and managing directors. That is why we often find ourselves talking to them in particular," she says.

She says cleaning the froth away is key and accountability is huge in the advertising industry.

She points to recent remarks by people such as Pat Nally, head of marketing and PR at Royal & Sun Alliance, who said in an industry journal recently that companies should not engage in any spending unless it was linked to measurable results.

Ms Corcoran believes results are not a problem for Limetree. For example, a campaign she cites for Stein Travel, featuring people who couldn't wait any longer for their holidays to begin, easily beat similar campaigns in terms of unprompted and prompted recall. She is hoping other campaigns can achieve similar "cut through".

Either way, Ms Corcoran believes the newness of her concept alone should trigger industry interest. "I think there is definitely a mood out there for something new".