One of the selling points of Blue Horse is the experience of our core group.
Consider that our Director of Media, Narkis Erlichman comes to us having worked at Burnett in Chicago, at McCann in New York and at Optimedia in Seattle.
Laura Rodriguez worked at DDB Needham and McCann in Los Angeles. Our pr folks, Steve Johnstone (winner of the Dorothy Thomas Black Award last year) and Susie Falk both have extensive backgrounds in their category. As does our president Tom Thiede and partner Bill Sheahan.
And if you get past all that, I spent twenty years at Leo Burnett and then some more at EuroRSCG Tatham.
One would hope that all that firepower would be invaluable in terms of strategic thinking about your brand. And you would be right.
But it also comes in handy when you have a quick turnaround situation on your hands. Like our good client Wal-Mart. They are partnering with the Milwaukee Wave soccer team to develop an abandoned piece of property in Cudahy. Naturally, things get contentious and we wanted to make sure that the supporters of the project were well represented at the planning commission meeting.
So Steve Johnstone comes to Bob Welke and together they come up with a direct mailer that is both an invitation and a way to visibly show support at the meeting. The copy is written on a Friday afternoon and by the following Wednesday, it’s been approved, printed and mailed.
And hundreds, yes–hundreds, of people show up at the meeting, cards in hand to support the project.
This was a low-cost, short-turnaround and creative answer to a difficult situation. And while it took two meetings to do it, Wal-Mart finally got the green light.
That’s what “hands on help from experienced people” actually means. It means you get answers that work. As we say in our mission, our job is not to make ourselves look good. Our job is to make our clients look good. So we don’t have to do TV commercials when postcards will work, especially postcards that double as on-site signage.
Our thanks to our good friends at Wal-Mart for giving us this opportunity.
Digg it?
July 18, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Aren’t advertising’s halcyon days inexorably linked to the fact that agencies once were PRIVATE and not PUBLIC concerns?
I operate (with extreme naivety) in a fog over how the BUSINESS of advertising works, having spent 20+ years on the creative side. Yet within my current condition of curmudgeon-dry (just made that word up) I keep wondering if things weren’t better in the DAYS OF YORE? The problem is most everything seems as if it was better in the rear-view mirror.
I’ve recently re-jiggered from my once perq-laden, title-heavy, lofty status. I now do work on a shoestring and a prayer. I miss the PAY CHECK (and the First Class airline seat) but that’s about all. This NEW WORLD ORDER is kind of a back-to-basics approach, not as detached and distant as it formerly was. My hunch is you feel the same? It’s a much healthier CLIENT/AGENCY/CONSUMER vortex. It’s much easier to create, shape, direct work when one is “HANDS ON.” In my previous life my judgments weren’t shaped solely by the ON-HAND data, but often by the metrics of previous projects, which was expedient but unprofessional.
For a refresher course on advertising (as it should be) I went on YouTube and watched
Leo Burnett’s farewell speech. Never had the pleasure to work for him, or around him, but when I watch him I’m struck by how antithetical he his to the caricature of those in his profession.
Could he even get HIRED today?
Could his ethos thrive in today’s environs?
Can an ethically driven, work-centric agency make it in 2008 and beyond?
I’m skeptically curious?
Christian V.