Profiles: The Promotion Network
The Promotion Network has always been ahead of the times.
When the doors first opened in 1983, the shop was one of the few promotion agencies offering ad agency-level client services, direct-fee billing (no markups here), and brand-building — rather than volume-boosting — concepts.
“Back then, everyone was price-focused,” says founder and ceo Roger Winter, who launched the business after spending 15 years in such marketing departments as McDonald’s Corp. and 7-Eleven being dissatisfied with available promotion shops. “To me, giving the product away is not marketing. It’s a ‘give-up’ strategy.”
Eighteen years later, Dallas-based TPN’s model is still ahead of the curve. That’s one of the reasons billings have risen steadily for the past seven years, with much of the growth coming through additional work from existing clients. (Agency of record accounts include ConAgra, Orbitz, and Rand McNally.) Net revenues increased 3.9 percent to $13.3 million in 2001, as billings rose 12.7 percent to $18.6 million.
“They’ve grown with us over the years,” says Cindy Alston, vp-equity development at agency-of-record account Gatorade, Chicago. “They’re incredibly creative and have tremendous client skills. They’re always on time and on budget.”
And on strategy: TPN was perfecting the notion of account-specific activity long before “retailtainment” was first uttered down in Bentonville. Few agencies better understand what’s going on in-store. That’s because they work both sides of the fence, spending time with the client’s marketing team to fully understand the business while also sitting down with retailers to get their perspective. “They’ve got the right skill sets and are incredibly responsive,” says Bob Merz, director of marketing for 7-Eleven, Dallas, which tapped the shop as AOR last summer. “They’re bright, strategic, and tactical.”
It was that expertise that had Omnicom’s Diversified Agency Services division calling last year. After a brief courtship, Winter relented and sold the agency last fall.
What else is different? Offices in Chicago and New York City were established to service accounts in those regions, but all creative comes out of Dallas headquarters. That doesn’t slow the approval process down one bit, shop executives say.
Although the core focus has always been retail, TPN is no one-note shop. Just look at Tailgate with the Truck, a fall 2001 program for ESPN that included a mobile tour, sweepstakes, online activities, and a sales-inducing overlay for cable affiliates. “A lot of competitors say they build brands, and some of them can back it up here and there,” boasts Winter. “We’ve got a deep delivery of it.”
One of Winter’s proudest points of difference, however, is the corporate culture. The shop expects its 120-odd employees to work very hard, but makes the rewards worth it. Such simple-yet-effective perks like the full-time chef in Dallas, the bar in New York City, and the washers and dryers in all three locations have helped keep staff turnover in the low single digits for years. “I don’t have a friend — or a client — who hasn’t asked me for a job,” says president Sharon Love, who first joined the company in 1998 — virtually right out of school. (Rich Feitler, executive vp and head of the Chicago office, is one of the few staffers who’ve worked elsewhere.)
“They understand brand equity and build it right into the promotions,” says Tom Hernquist, a 16-year client while at Frito-Lay and Nabisco. (He’s now senior vp-marketing for Jim Beam Brands.) “They don’t present promotions you’ve seen before.”
And if Winter has his way, they never will.
