Profiles: Ten Who Counted

Expertise in various areas added up to success in 2000 for these shops.

Above and Beyond

DDB Needham’s homegrown marketing services sibling, Beyond DDB (No. 28), epitomizes the more-than-advertising mentality marketers have these days. Six offices (housed in DDB ad locations) pumped up net revenues 63 percent to $35 million for 2000. Most (61 percent) growth came through additional business from existing clients — primarily DDB ad clients looking below the line. Promotion accounts for half of Beyond’s work. “The potential for promotion growth is tremendous,” says president Ray Gillette. “To continue to grow here, we need to be at the forefront of integration.”

Each office touts its own expertise: Seattle majors in p.r., Dallas does mostly promo, L.A. boasts direct-response and promotion. Headquarters in Chicago is multi-disciplined, with event and sponsorship chops to round out the rest. Half of Chicago revenues come from such DDB ad clients as McDonald’s and State Farm; the other half comes from Beyond-only clients.

Among highlights in 2000: PepsiWorld.com’s extension of the on-pack Choose Your Music campaign and online activity to launch Mountain Dew extension Code Red (both via interactive sib Tribal DDB); a J.C. Penney gift-guide CD-ROM with music, games, 102 Dalmatians trailer, and Good Housekeeping cooking tips; offbeat sponsorships for Van Kampen Investments; and a repeat of the Reggie-winning Rock Tour for United States Gypsum’s Sheetrock brand.

Picky and Proud

Net revenues at Hilton Head Island, SC-based BFG Communications (No. 58) nearly doubled in 2000 to $2.7 million. But ceo Kevin Meany says he’s being very selective about new accounts, so an avalanche of business won’t hurt the quality his agency puts out. “There are more people knocking on our door than we accept,” says Meany.

Sponsorships and event marketing are the six-year-old agency’s bread and butter; additional specialties include sweepstakes, contests, and Internet marketing. The client list features Bass Ale, Hyatt Resorts, and Century 21 Real Estate. New wins in 2000 included Malibu Rum and Aelix, a Chicago-based telephony integrator. “We’re as comfortable with real estate as we are with high-tech,” says Meany. The year’s growth was split between new clients and additional business from existing accounts. The 26-person shop has branch offices in Albany, NY, Parsippany NJ, and Miami.

BFG has taken Century 21’s sponsorship portfolio down a variety of roads, connecting the brand with Major League Baseball, the National Harness Racing Association, and Ringo Starr’s Sixth All-Starr Band tour. The shop’s “creativity, experience, and knowledge of consumer promotions and event marketing continue to help [us] play a leading role in the real estate industry,” says Steve Savino, Century 21’s executive vp-global marketing.

Taming the Grinch

Greenwich, CT-based Clarion Marketing and Communications (No. 37) wants its fingers in every marketing pie. “People talk about activating the brand at every touch point,” says president Caren Berlin. “We have to create integrated brand messages that are consistent when consumers go to the store, when they open their mail boxes, [and] when they go to a Web site.”

The agency went the full-service route for Kellogg last year, spearheading the company’s blowout holiday tie-in to Universal’s Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Grinch Who Stole Breakfast campaign played out on 115 million packages across numerous brands and featured hundreds of creative executions and multiple offers; at a grinchbreakfast.com Web site where kids could e-mail their Christmas lists to relatives; and to the trade with special foodservice promotions and eight account-specific overlays. That’s integration.

A corporate restructuring kept revenue growth modest (12 percent) in the last two years. “We’re now much more retainer-based versus project-based,” says Berlin.

“You can have a great agency, but if they’ve got the wrong people on the account, it’s not worth anything,” says Sandy Uridge, group promotion manager at Kellogg. “We’ve got the right people on our account.”

Farm Fresh

How did Colangelo Group, an agency started inside a Wilton, CT, farmhouse, become one of the hottest shops around? With focus, creativity, originality — and one deft merger. Colangelo Synergy Marketing (No. 17) applies integration in everything it does.

The agency’s client list has grown organically since its 1993 inception, increasing primarily through word of mouth — especially since Colangelo’s merger with Chicago-based Synergy Marketing in ‘98 (hence the current name). Clients say the independent challenges them with original ideas and acts like a true partner. “Everything they’ve delivered has helped take the brand to another level,” says Guinness integrated marketing manager Frank Polly. “I have total confidence in them.”

Net revenues rose 57 percent to $13.2 million last year, with 74 percent of the growth coming from new accounts such as Kemper Financial and scads of work from Guinness Bass Import Co., now an AOR client. The Darien, CT-based shop also boasts Kraft, Unilever, Pepperidge Farm, IBM, and Perrier among its clients.

Campaigns combine healthy doses of promotion, branding, P-O-P, packaging, direct marketing, and whatever else can produce what clients ultimately demand. “It’s all about the results,” says president Rob Colangelo. “We’re not out there preaching integration. We’re living it.”

Surround Sound

Milwaukee-based Cramer-Krasselt Co. (No. 65) is a jack of all trades. Ads account for half its business; the rest is promotion, direct marketing, and p.r. “We never approach a campaign on the basis of TV commercials first,” says ceo Peter Krivkovich.

Promotion net revenues jumped 162 percent over two years to $2.5 million. The future growth plan calls for more integration. “We bundle coordinated communications for a consistent message with all stakeholders at all touch points,” Krivkovich says.

Highlights from 2000 include design work for a Hershey Syrup on-pack sweeps (a light-sensitive chip announced the winner); a Master Lock sweeps awarding $10,000 in Sony gear to the winning lock combination (with the combos doubling as gamepieces); and the Z Room, a permanent exhibit at SoHo’s New Museum of Contemporary Art that Zenith Corp. uses to introduce products. A Win a Cow sweeps for Northland Cranberries’ Seneca juice won the FSI Council’s top award when sales volume jumped 166 percent the week after the coupon drop (although PETA wasn’t thrilled with the done-in-jest offer).

“They keep it simple, stay on strategy, and don’t get caught up throwing too much into a program and cluttering it up,” says Northland brand manager Jim Tierney.

That’s Entertainment

Creative Alliance Marketing & Communications (No. 41) co-founders and former Pepsi marketers Tony D’Amico and Nick Lemma went the entrepreneur route in 1990, and fortuitously decided to build expertise in sampling events. Today, the agency’s main strength is its Brand Ambassadors field marketing program.

“Our claim to fame is recruiting actors and training them intensively to become true extensions of the brand,” says Lemma. “When they’re out in the marketplace interacting with the consumer, it becomes a live commercial.”

The Southport, CT-based agency’s net revenues doubled to $5.5 million in 2000, with additional work from long-time clients Pepsi and Labatt’s providing most of the boost. The shop delivered a workplace sampling campaign as part of the Pepsi ONE Trivia Challenge.

“They executed a great program that wasn’t just hand-to-hand sampling but a true event,” says Alix Hart, Pepsi ONE marketing manager. “We’ve been floored by the people they bring in.”

To launch Ace Hardware’s ourhouse.com Web site, Creative Alliance leveraged the retail co-op’s Citrus Bowl sponsorship, picking two randomly chosen ticket holders for the Ultimate Upgrade: seats in a faux living room on the sidelines with service from Miss Vermont and nearby Walt Disney World’s Prince Charming. Traffic to ourhouse.com increased six-fold.

An Eye for Promotion

Steven Dapper ran Rapp Collins and Wunderman Cato Johnson before joining with Ronnie Cohen (former president of Chicago-based private-equity firm GTCR) to launch New York City-based Hawkeye Communications (No. 21) in 1999. Steering those big ships taught Dapper the lessons he needed to run Hawkeye, an industry consolidator that has amassed an eclectic array of shops in promotion (including erstwhile PROMO 100 member Marketing Continuum), direct response, business-to-business, interactive, and telecommunications. In just two years, Hawkeye has amassed a network with $93.6 million in net revenues. Clients include Blockbuster, Microsoft, and Walt Disney Co.

“The biggest change for us [in 2000] was going from 150 people to 600 people and maintaining an atmosphere of collaboration,” says Dapper. “We’re creating a group of people who can leave their egos at the door.”

For Procter & Gamble’s move into hardware tools last fall, Cincinnati-based subsidiary Triplefin developed a multi-pronged campaign targeting independent stores, wooing them with a mix of direct mail, sampling, and phone promotions. Although P&G is still sorting through results, it calls the campaign a success. “I’m impressed with their willingness to challenge us about how we think about a project,” says P&G account executive Mike Brown.

Whole Numbers

Integer Group (No. 19) preaches integration. Revenue growth of 50 percent in the last two years to $88.5 million came mostly from new wins, including Corporate Express, Molson Beer (a joint venture with flagship client Coors Brewing Co.), and health-test chain Quest Diagnostics.

Promotion projects account for 65 percent of revenues, but HQ in Golden, CO, has mostly multidiscipline accounts. “It’s surprising they’re a regional agency, because they have all the skills of a large national agency,” says Rebecca Hoskins, director of marketing with Qwest Communications’ business-to-business launch Apptimum.

Integer acquired a handful of regional ad and promo shops since its 1993 spin-off from Coors, adding Stern Advertising in Cleveland and Denver’s Karsh & Hagen in ‘99. “When we began, we took on everything Coors asked, so we work in all disciplines,” says Integer West president Mike Sweeney.

Last June, Integer launched Teach Learn training to keep turnover low; a dozen Denver staffers are on their second stint with the shop. “Those ‘boomerangs’ are a testament to our culture,” Sweeney says.

Big work this year: Coke’s blow-out for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Integer won’t talk because it’s Coke’s secret weapon. But the shop’s retail expertise (honed on PearleVision, Kay Jewelers, and McDonald’s co-ops) should come into play.

Hollywood or Bust

Patti Regan launched an agency from her apartment in 1993 to handle field promotion work for a handful of movie studios. Today, The Regan Group has evolved into a full-service shop serving clients inside and outside Tinseltown.

The agency — which lands at No. 48 (up from 100 in 2000) on the PROMO 100 after more than tripling net revenues to $3 million — still manages consumer and trade campaigns for movie and home video releases. But it has moved into such areas as mobile and loyalty marketing for the likes of Ford Motor Co., Boeing, and Norelco. It also has a dedicated fulfillment center.

Clients say the Los Angeles-based agency’s 20 staffers are creative thinkers who understand business. “Looking at a project from top to bottom allows us to see how to best assist clients,” says Regan, a former vp-marketing at mini-studio Triax Entertainment. “We don’t take a cookie-cutter approach.”

Past promotional highlights include online promotions for Columbia TriStar’s home-video collection, a 10-market college tour for Ford, and a multi-channel blitz for DreamWorks’ The Road to El Dorado. “They’re always on top of things,” says Jamie Stevens, vp-national promotions with Universal Studios. “I can count on them to have all the specifics tied up and never drop the ball.”

Full Speed Ahead

Formed in 1999 by a group of former Clarion Marketing executives, Velocity Sports & Entertainment (No. 99) has quickly built itself into one of the strongest sponsorship activation houses around.

The agency’s 31 employees apply an experiential focus to everything they do for a swelling client list that includes flagship account Federal Express as well as NASCAR, IBM, and Cingular. The shop’s net revenues have risen to $4.7 million and its billings to $29.2 million in just two years.

Despite the last third of its name, Velocity focuses primarily on its sports business. (Programs tied to athletics bring in 85 percent of revenues.) In an age when most agencies are playing the full-service card, “We are committed to staying focused on our core competency,” says principal Michael Reisman. “We’ll never get distracted.”

The Westport, CT-based shop understands how to get the most out of properties: Last year’s FedEx Air & Ground Attack NFL initiative used sweepstakes, online programs, retail overlays, and a direct-mail onslaught to increase sales and generate more than one billion total impressions.

“A sports agency that puts marketing first and sports second is rare in this industry,” says Federal Express manager of sports and event marketing Nancy Altenburg. “They’ve made themselves completely indispensable. I’d recommend them to anyone.”