Keating Magee's headquarters occupies a full floor in the Jackson Brewery building. One side of the suite overlooks the Mississippi River. Occasionally the marketing agency's conferences are accompanied by a steamboat's calliope belting out a Dixieland tune. The opposite side faces the rest of the French Quarter, with a fine view of Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral.
As befits its location, the agency serves a blue-chip roster of local and national clients, including utility/cable firm Cox Media; Tulane University Hospital and Clinic; and classic Creole cuisine restaurant Galatoire's.
On Aug. 28, the agency employed 35 people. After Hurricane Katrina made landfall, its staff experienced a series of draconian cuts that left it with 13 workers — the heads of the public relations, media, creative, finance, new business and account services departments, and one or two additional employees in each area.
Holly McCollum was one of those remaining. As vice president of media services — as well as being an active participant in the local chapter of the American Association of Advertising Agencies — McCollum has kept her finger on the pulse of the advertising and promotions industry throughout Katrina's aftermath.
According to McCollum, one of the significant changes to the New Orleans advertising community is that media measurement firms have largely pulled out of the city. Even before the storm, New Orleans was not a top-40 market, and between the population loss and the devastation to its infrastructure, firms such as A.C. Nielsen won't be measuring audiences much before year's end, if then.
“The old metrics of measurement are no longer statistically valid,” she says. “The crutch for retailers and agencies of gross ratings points and cost per point is gone. Every business that spends money has effectively become a direct marketer. We're back to the days of having to prove a campaign's effectiveness — Did we sell product? That is, did it work? — vs. efficiencies.”
What this means, says McCollum, is that New Orleans could become “a beta market for direct marketing.”
“Everything is pure direct response,” she says. “There's no way to get cost per point or an accurate cost per thousand. Everything is based on response. You run the ad and it gets a response or it doesn't — and you know immediately.”
Keating Magee's clients are buying much more online and e-mail direct marketing than they had before Katrina. “There's been a huge shift in client acceptance of online DM,” says McCollum.
One client, Cox Media, has given its online media planning and creative design to the agency. “There's been a tenfold increase in its online budget,” McCollum says. “They can't do mail.”
In fact, few New Orleans DMers can, which makes the city's role as a multichannel marketplace questionable. Six months after Katrina, the U.S. Postal Service's ability to provide reliable service within the city is minimal. Standard mail and periodicals are not being delivered into the city, and first class mail arrives anywhere from two to three days to several months after it's mailed.
Another client, Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, has spent far more on direct response radio and print than it ever had before.
“Originally, it was to do outreach to staff and patients spread across the United States,” says McCollum. “For the first five months after the storm, traffic on the roads was significantly higher as more folks commuted into and out of the city to jobs and ruined homes — and therefore radio became a better vehicle for reaching consumers. We're finally going back on local TV now that the downtown campus finally has reopened.”
