It was tough making those first phone calls the week after Sept. 11 as I set about writing this month’s feature story.
How could I possibly ask people about business?
When I did, the tone was markedly different from any in my 14 years covering this industry. People talked about their feelings — for family, for business colleagues, for the country. Few people spoke about The Competition, and those who did sounded far less fierce than they did three months ago. Those of you I spoke with were taking stock of relationships, not rivalries.
The promotions business is, for better or worse, built on relationships. Here are some of the stories you shared with me about how Sept. 11 affected yours.
Employees at Big Fat Promotions watched the World Trade Center collapse from the roof of their own building. “When that first tower fell, I thought about how the world changed forever,” said president Jonathan Ressler. Days later, “we talked about how we’ll have to change everything we do” in daily routines as well as business. Big Fat reviewed 12 programs it was fielding in New York City that day, and didn’t change any because “it’s all very real. More than ever, people want to connect with people.”
Dairy Management, Inc. and MilkPep met Sept. 11 to see first and second-quarter marketing programs they’d start selling in to retailers the following week. The 140 processors and industry reps were just gathering when the news broke; meeting planners asked for a show of hands every hour or so about whether to continue. People kept voting to carry on. At one point, an attendee asked to give an ecumenical prayer. “People wanted to be together. It was healing just to be in a group,” said Allyn Miller, president of Flair Communications, which presented alongside MilkPep ad agency Bozell, whose staff is based in Manhattan. The meeting ran three days; attendees doubled up in hotel rooms to free rooms for stranded travelers.
One agency president told of a client who called two days after the attack to check on P-O-P slated to ship from New York City that week. It didn’t ship. The client screamed at the account exec for not making contingency plans. It’s the agency’s job to think of things like this, the client said. “The thing is, the account people had thought about it,” the president told me. “They even talked about driving the production disks to alternate printers, in their own cars.” In the end, the shop called field staffers and retailers about the delay; no one minded.
And how did the account exec respond to the client? “They just took it, and then came in my office and cried,” the president said.
Feeling Our Way
Fortunately, such stories are rare. Most agencies found camaraderie and consideration. “Clients feel now like things aren’t as urgent,” said Ryan Partnership president Tom Libonate.
Aspen Marketing Group scrambled to locate all staffers in its 17 offices, especially its New York City office 10 blocks from Ground Zero. New York staffers communicated via Blackberry hand-held computers, since cell phones weren’t working. The week after the attacks, staffers spent two days cleaning up, then reopened for business on Wednesday. Regular staff meetings between offices are now conducted by phone.
Technology helps connect us, but sometimes it hinders real relationship-building.
“It’s a very different business world these days,” lamented Jon Kramer, president, J. Brown/LMC Group, Stamford, CT. “You don’t get a chance to develop relationships with clients. Between e-mail, overnight mail, and all the ways we can connect without being face-to-face, we don’t have personal relationships anymore, we have vendor relationships.”
Will that get worse if more meetings become videoconferences, and there are fewer handshakes to go around? Won’t clients still want agencies within arm’s reach?
“Distance may well become an issue for clients,” said Dick Thomas, who heads up Frankel’s new-business pitches. Competing in major markets like New York City and Atlanta could get tougher. It shouldn’t be as bad in smaller markets — with fewer shops to choose from — but clients will still want convenient access to their shops.
I remember several years ago when the president of a Minneapolis shop that was pitching Kraft Foods tried to convince me — as he had put it to Kraft — that it took less time to get to their surburban Chicago headquarters from Minneapolis than it did from downtown Chicago, what with expressway construction in Chicago and the mere one-hour flight from the Twin Cities. I didn’t buy it then; I buy it even less now.
Promotion is a young business, and Sept. 11 forces young adults who’ve never known war to reevaluate their priorities. “The average age here is 32,” Jay Farrell, ceo of 141 Communicator, told me. “They’re so idealistic. They’re looking for something to hang onto.”
We all are. It may be as simple as hanging on to the things that made us like each other in the first place.
Thanks for taking my calls. Let’s keep in touch.
Network
