Oath's first campaign aims to showcase its brands and reach

Oath, the new brand Verizon created by combining AOL and Yahoo, has pushed out its first global brand campaign #BuildYourBrand across nine markets.

The campaign focuses on Oath's assets and brands in mobile, video, and data for advertisers, publishers and partners.

"Right now, it really is about branding Oath which was brought together only three months ago," Allie Kline, global chief marketing officer of Oath said. "The main objective is to communicate the details and nuances of the brands we have in our portfolio and how brands and clients can work with them."

The lead 60-second spot, titled "Madness", examines the relationship brands have with consumers. It features not just Oath's brands, but other great brands of the world that have passionate fans including Starbucks, North Face, and Hello Kitty.

A key feature of the spot is the music selected to accompany it, a cover of A Tribe Called Quest's Can I Kick It by Public Enemy and Prophets of Rage frontman Chuck D.

"We liked the edgy beat, but we also like that it was an iconic song of the 1990s and we've put a new spin on it. It's an empowerment song, but in many ways, the feel of it in the ad matters more than the words," Kline said.

"We build brands that over a billion global digital consumers love," Tim Armstrong, chief executive of Oath said. "We have one simple message to mobile consumers and customers – build your brand – and we have Chuck D helping us fight the power."

Follow-on ads will focus more on individual brands or capabilities Oath has to offer clients.

The campaign creative, jointly developed by Oath’s in-house creative team and partner agencies, Zenith and Squeak E. Clean, includes visuals depicting Oath’s brands as orbs. AR work on the campaign was created by Oath's production agency, Ryot.

While it was important to brand the house brand, Oath, Kline wanted to maintain the uniqueness and strength of each of the brand under its umbrella. "It gives us an opportunity to play with design, plus, each of the orbs is AR-enabled, think of the stories that can be told."

Oath will be rolling out the campaign across broadcast, digital, mobile, out-of-home and print in the US, the UK, Canada, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Taiwan and France today. The campaign will see softer in-market activation in Oath's other markets.

"We're targeting media agencies, creative agencies, advertisers and publishing audience. Buyers of programmatic product and buyers of our offerings," Kline said.