Some Minnesota ad firms still expanding
Marketing: Risdall, Fallon both continue to gain business, add employees
Finance and Commerce
February 6, 2009
By Bob Geiger
Click here to download a PDF of the article (3mb)
At a time when profit-squeezed advertising executives quip that “flat
is the new up,” Risdall Marketing Group and Fallon Minneapolis have
managed to gain business.
New Brighton-based Risdall Marketing Group (RMG) expanded from 60
to 80 employees, up 33 percent, during 2008, when the agency picked up
101 new clients or projects from existing clients.
Fallon, which produced edgy advertising for Travelers Insurance
and ex-clients BMW Cars North America, Citigroup and EDS, has garnered
more than $50 million in ad spending from three clients in the first
weeks of 2009.
Fallon’s gains include the estimated $30 million Boston Market
account, $20 million Totino’s frozen pizza and pizza rolls business, and
ALPO brand dog food, the fourth Nestle Purina pet food brand for which
the agency will create marketing.
RMG’s gains reflect “having the right people and the right stuff
at the right time,” said John Risdall, chairman and chief executive
officer of the firm, which has 14 separate divisions, including the
superfluous “Risdall Museum of Luminous Sculpture.”
During better days, when Minneapolis was a gleaming hub of
creative advertising, RMG had trouble drawing big-city talent to New
Brighton.
“We used to not be able to get them to cross the river and come
up to (Interstate) 694,” Risdall said. “Today, that’s no problem.”
RMG’s specialty in Internet technology and interactive design
began more than 15 years ago, when agency staffers wrote their own
computer code during internet marketing’s infancy.
Website design and a host of other interactive marketing
opportunities helped expand the tech side of RMG, which complemented the
agency’s business-to-business marketing.
Risdall followed 2008 with a record new-business month in
January, when the agency landed print advertising, public relations and
website design, online marketing or social media projects for seven
clients and another major client Risdall declined to identify.
Additional employees and work volume forced the shop to expand
onto the second floor of an 80,000 square-foot building southwest of
Interstates 694 and 35W.
RMG has been adding divisions for years – the most significant
ones being Risdall McKinney Public Relations (RMPR), Risdall Integration
Group, Risdall Online Marketing Group and Risdall Strategic
Consultation Group.
These disciplines play roles in larger firms that specialize in
mass media advertising. But with conventional broadcast and print
advertising migrating online, tech-savvy RMG is positioned to garner
revenues from clients seeking exposure in a web-driven ad world.
“Social media was a big killer,” said Risdall, referring to the
February 2008 creation of Risdall Integration Group (RIG), a division
that intertwines social media with the firm’s client marketing efforts.
“It’s the core of an ad agency,” Risdall said. “The cool thing is
PR supports web, web supports PR, and both support advertising – so
you’re in a better position to have it go around and around and around.”
Jared Roy, president of RIG, returned to the agency last year
from the Winston-Salem, N.C. office of Mullen, a Wenham, Mass.-based ad
agency.
“We treat (social media) as a new media channel that you have to
pay attention to,” Roy said. RMG created a mapping process to determine
which social networking venues make the best marketing sense for its
clients.
Other RIG clients include Fairview Health Services, Premier
Mounts (a California manufacturer of flat-screen TV mounting products)
and McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul.
Although not as large as Fairview, music school McNally Smith is a
good example of how social marketing can help reach prospective
students. Roy said high school-age students interested in attending
music colleges use the web to determine where they will go to school.
So RMG keeps track of musicologists and students discussing music
school experiences on such social networking sites as Facebook and
Twitter – and offers information about McNally Smith at key
decision-making times.
Other recent hires of talent from downtown agencies include Cindy
Lord, president of Risdall Strategic Consultation Group, and Helen
Lauen, who joined Lord this week as director of strategic planning from
Minneapolis shop Gabriel deGrood Bendt.
“I usually just introduce myself as strategy gal,” said Lord,
whose division focuses on business and marketing strategy related to its
communications and branding efforts.
At RMG, she said, “There’s a lot more focus on just doing the
right thing for the client. At larger agencies, there is more focus on
getting the right kind of work in front of the right people in the right
place.
“There’s no pressure just to meet some sort of marketplace,” Lord
continued. “That just doesn’t exist here. I’ve found that very
freeing.”
The agency’s public relations division, Risdall McKinney Public
Relations (RMPR), also has turned out to be a revenue generator.
Headed by Rose McKinney, who joined RMG in 2006 from the PR
business unit of Minneapolis agency Martin/Williams, RMPR has expanded
to a 12-employee firm with $3.5 million in annual revenues.
The firm has tapped PR and corporate execs, including Joel
Swanson, former communications director at Blue Cross Blue Shield
Minnesota; Brant Skogrand, ex-communications director at Thrivent
Financial for Lutherans; and Eva Keiser, who joined RMPR from
Minneapolis firm Padilla Speer Beardsley.
The good fortune at RMG and Fallon creates a sense of hope and
confidence during quiet days on the agency front. It is embodied by a
quote in a Fallon news release about landing the ALPO assignment.
“We’ve all seen the picture of the dogs playing poker,” said John
King, director of brand innovation for Fallon. “That photo represents
the ALPO brand and the ALPO dog. We believe dogs haven’t changed; people
have, and people changed dog food to meet their needs. ALPO is going to
call a timeout and give permission for dogs to be dogs again.”
The agency’s first work for ALPO, a venerable brand that once had
Bonanza star Lorne Greene as its spokesman, is scheduled to break later
this month.
About Risdall Marketing Group
Founded in 1972, Risdall Marketing Group has annual capitalized
billings of $190 million in 2008 and over 80 employees. Headquartered in
New Brighton, Minn., Risdall is heralded as one of the oldest and most
successful agencies in the Twin Cities market and is recognized
nationally for its leading-edge interactive marketing capabilities. The
full-service agency embraces an integrated approach offering marketing,
advertising, public relations, promotion and collateral development,
traditional and interactive media, research and fundraising
capabilities. According to the 2008 Twin Cities Business Annual
Business Information Guide, RMG is ranked as the largest Web
developer, fifth largest PR agency and the seventh largest advertising
agency in Minnesota. For more information, visit www.risdall.com.
John Risdall
Risdall
Marketing Group
651.286.6702
john@risdall.com
Lisa Grimm
Risdall
McKinney Public Relations
651.286.6761
lisa@risdall.com
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