New Landscape in St. Louis
It’s time for a new map of St. Louis. Management shifts this year at Momentum North America and Zipatoni resulted in at least three start-up shops and general unrest at the city’s top two promo agencies. That leaves the marketplace poised for more change in 2004 as new agencies staff up — perhaps at the expense of established shops.
Creative work is the linchpin, as Momentum exports its creative expertise headquartered here and Zipatoni builds its creative ranks.
“St. Louis is re-emerging,” says Zipatoni President Jim Holbrook. “Years ago, it was the third-largest corporate headquarters city in the country. Agencies grew along with their local clients. Now we have St. Louis-based agencies serving national clients.”
Momentum Worldwide unveils a re-branding effort this month that puts its 62 offices in 35 countries under the same name and stresses expertise in sponsorship, promotion, event marketing and retail. The St. Louis headquarters of Momentum North America (PROMO’s Agency of the Year in 2001) continues under New York City-based management with its first-ever worldwide chief creative officer, Steve Hunt, stationed in St. Louis.
At the same time, Zipatoni quietly shifts gears after the July departure of its longtime creative chief Norty Cohen. Zipatoni (PROMO’s Agency of the Year in 2000) lost half its Bacardi business to Cohen’s new consultancy, Moosylvania, but made up the revenues with new-business wins from McNeill Nutritionals (Viactiv and Splenda), Visa International, eBay, Capital One and Borden.
Momentum Worldwide Chairman-CEO Chris Weil has managed Momentum North America since the May departure of CEO Mark Shapiro and CFO Jerry Best (July PROMO). Shapiro opens a new shop, Cha-Ching, Dec. 1 with a handful of staffers and promises of business from auto, entertainment, soft drink and airline brands.
Momentum decentralized management at six North American offices, which used to report into Shapiro in St. Louis. “We pushed it out to where the business is being done. Offices each have their own P&L now,” Weil says.
St. Louis execs Hunt, Stacey Goldman and Denny Reed work with Momentum Worldwide President Bill Kolb on St. Louis day-to-day management. “Shapiro did a great job building an agency of doers,” Hunt says. “We’re all very close to the business day to day, and management is our night job.”
The upheaval at Momentum was disconcerting for Zipatoni staffers who feared a bloodletting of their own under Interpublic Group of Cos., which owns both Momentum and Zipatoni. Some speculate that financially troubled IPG may merge the shops. That seems unlikely, given significant client conflicts, with Anheuser-Busch at the top of Momentum’s roster and Miller Brewing Co. accounting for one-third of Zip’s revenues. IPG declined to comment.
Momentum added 45 staffers in 2003, 12 to 15 of them in St. Louis, where the 220-person staff includes 150 creatives who handle all creative work for the 62 offices. Total North America headcount is now 550, with another 20 jobs open.
This fall Momentum launched an internal study-abroad program, Creative MIX, sending St. Louis executive creative director Scott Melton and associate creative director Jeff Stevens to Momentum’s Manchester, U.K. office for 60 days to assist with Coca-Cola and Nestlé work. A second St. Louis team goes to Cologne, Germany, next month, with São Paolo and China next up. “Our network has been built in the last five years, so there’s not a ton of history that unites everybody,” Hunt says. “[This helps] people feel like part of a bigger entity.”
New clients in 2003 include computer-chip maker AMD, AmeriStar casinos, and UPS. Weil hopes to grow business in 2004 with core clients A-B, Coke, General Motors and American Express. “We need to prove out the worth of our [global] network through big, global accounts,” he says.
Zipatoni added 20-plus staffers this year, including Exec VP-Creative Director Laura Johnson, who oversees the Chicago office with VPs-Account Directors Dawn Baskin and Greg Gunderson; and VP-Senior Creative Director Dino DeLeon. It lost VP-General Manager Rodney Mason (Chicago) to hawkeye|FFWD and Account Supervisor Gus Hattrich, who joined his father’s St. Louis shop Thunderbolt Marketing.
This year has been “a pivot point for us,” Holbrook says. “We brought in new talent, won a bunch of new business, and are well-situated for 2004 and beyond. We’ve gone through a metamorphosis from wild boutique to true marketing agency, with more depth of resources and better results. We kept the spirit, but evolved the thing.”
Culture changes under IPG exacerbated the shift in mood following COO Mitch Meyers’ 2002 retirement (founder Jack Thorwegen retired in 2000). “It felt like the band had been together too long and people were ready for a change,” says one insider.
Zipatoni’s 2003 wins follow a tough year when “we spent a lot of time pitching and losing pitches,” Holbrook says. “We retooled with better research, more ROI focus and more training.” Zip doubled its training budget and invested heavily in recruiting this year. It added offices in Dallas (to serve Kinko’s and Dr Pepper/Seven UP Cos.) and San Francisco (for Dreyer’s, Visa and eBay) and expects to re-open a New York City office by January to serve McNeil.
“It’s been a hard year to make multiple levels of change — getting the right training and people in place,” Holbrook says. “But it’s been a very satisfying year because even in the midst of this marketing recession, our phone is ringing and we’re getting assignments.”
New Kids on the Block
Meanwhile, Cohen quietly opened Moosylvania with work from Bacardi, an account he oversaw at Zipatoni. He has been consulting for Zipatoni but that arrangement isn’t likely to last. Cohen had no comment on plans for Moosylvania.
Shapiro positions Cha-Ching as “where above meets below-the-line,” an independent shop handling promos and ads. Non-financial partnerships with a sponsorship consultancy and an events agency (both outside St. Louis) are the start of “an intelligence network of six to seven disciplines” referring clients to each other, he says. Alliances with a CRM shop and a p.r. shop in St. Louis could follow. The staff — fewer than 10, all titled “brand advocate” — concentrates on strategy and creative. A board of advisors (most outside St. Louis) will counsel on growth and keep Cha-Ching true to its mission: “Agencies tend to migrate towards revenue and lose sight of the qualitative nature of relationships,” Shapiro explains.
Blue Torch Interactive opened Oct. 1 with five staffers, led by Zipatoni veterans Stephanie Brown, Blue Torch CEO, and Laura Ryder, chief technology officer. The shop handles online and wireless promos that drive consumer action. Revenues should hit $500,000 to $750,000 in 2004, Brown says.
Account Action
NASCAR, Daytona Beach, FL, named Boone/Oakley, Charlotte, agency of record for its Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series races.
ME Productions, Hollywood, FL selected by the Miami HEAT Family Outreach Charitable Fund as its official event producer of HEAT’s Charitable Fund events for a year.
Lanham, MD-based Merkle Direct Marketing, Inc. selected by the national nonprofit voluntary health agency, The Arthritis Foundation, Atlanta, to provide a full range of direct marketing services.
Blattner Brunner, Pittsburgh, named agency of record by Peach Glen, PA-based Knouse Foods, Inc.
Polyglot Systems, Inc., Durham, NC, selected The Republick, also Durham, as its agency of record.
Point Pleasant, NJ-based Jersey Mike’s, a submarine sandwich chain with 275 locations nationwide, recently selected MRA, Syracuse, NY, as its national agency of record.
CrownPeak Technology, Los Angeles, CA, selected to provide a content management implementation for the Klein Bikes unit of Trek Bicycle Corp., Waterloo, WI.
Tampa, FL-based SRI/Surgical Express, Inc., a major provider of surgical services to hospitals and surgery centers, has appointed PeakBiety advertising + marketing, also Tampa, to develop programs to meet the company’s new objectives.
Timberland Woodcrafters, Inc., North Wales, PA, named SFGT, Philadelphia, agency of record.
