Breaking Down Barriers
As architects construct a major addition to Flair House this year to prepare Flair Communications Agency for the future, they will inevitably break down doors to link the historic structure with its new state-of-the-art 45,000-square-foot neighbor.
Flair’s office project might work as a symbol for a 1998 in which the agency moved into TV ads for Ameritech and began re-engineering its culture.
Flair managers steered the 35-year-old-agency to a record year of revenue growth, and integrated campaigns for such clients as Dole Foods, the California Public Utilities Commission, Johnson Worldwide, and Certs. Revenue reached $52.8 million in fiscal 1998 (ended February), 55 percent better than the previous year.
Flair redefined itself as a “powerhouse” marketer to help clients use promotions more strategically toward long-term goals (see related story on page 50). “We want to get more passionate,” says chairman and ceo Lee Flaherty.
“I’ve always hoped that I would work long enough to see promotion come into its own. Now every agency is trying to buy into the business,” and creating an environment where clients are squeezing shops for the best costs, says the 58-year-old Flaherty.
In January, 15 Flair associates spent two days in Emeryville, CA, hashing over the future with the staff of Global Business Network, author Peter Schwartz’s band of futurists. They left with a clearer idea of what’s ahead, and an alliance with GBN through which Flair will promote the company’s methods in scenario planning.
Powerhouse marketing rests on the notion that marketers must encompass branding through the quick-response offers of promotion, communicated via all media, including TV. “We had a strategic methodology, but it was too impersonal, too canned,” says Flaherty.
Flair was thinking in a similar forward-minded vein about two years ago, when it began to prospect for clients in industries outside traditional packaged goods; it ended up helping Microsoft launch Windows ’98 with a radio campaign slanted to local markets through spot tags for selected retailers.
“The spots resonated well with our prospective customers. The real value-added piece was in their mapping the opportunity in different markets and then plotting an intelligent media plan to partner with the resellers,” says Microsoft group manager of channel marketing Jeff Ramos.
Revenue from new work in utilities and cellular phones account for a large part of last year’s sales growth, says president Allyn Miller, 52.
In 1997, Flair won a $15 million account from the California Public Utility Commission for work on deregulation issues and consumer education. As utility deregulation sweeps the nation, Flair is tracking other states where it could use the model, says Miller.
In a newly freed cellular phone market, the agency is enjoying new growth from Ameritech, a client since 1994.
It’s helping americast, a company owned by Ameritech and Disney that is introducing a second cable TV system into the Midwest. Flair direct-mailed subscriber candidates a deluxe video previewing the system’s high bandwidth capabilities.
The agency parlayed the promotion work for Ameritech into two TV ad production assignments, groundbreaking work during which Flair proved it could quickly turn around spots at low cost.
In a new five-year plan, Flair designates planning for the Internet as “the primary thrust,” says Miller. “We will need to define and lead in what we call e-promo, which will require “the best of online and off-line communications,” he says.
Sounds like a business goal based on some practiced scenario work.
A pleasant working environment is important to Flai, so the agency will expand Flair House to unite associates now divided between two offices.
