Profiles: Ryan Partnership
They say you should never forget where you came from — and Ryan Partnership hasn’t.
Opened as a packaged goods consultancy in 1984, the Westport, CT-based shop has since evolved steadily and sizably into one of the industry’s most strategically sound agencies, a full-service powerhouse beloved by clients and adored by its own employees. “They’ll do whatever it takes to help us get the results we’re looking for,” says Lisa Klauser, vp-consumer activation with Englewood Cliffs, NJ-based Lipton Co., a client of three years.
Among independent agencies, it can’t get much more full-service than this. On a macro level, Ryan’s business model is made up of promotion, channel, direct, field, research, and interactive marketing arms. On a micro level, those units offer clients a seamless mixture of just about anything they need. From strategic planning, concept development, creative services, merchandising, and events to direct-response programs, trade campaigns, new media, and creative services, it’s all in this house. “‘Integration’ is an easy word to say and spell,” says president-coo Tom Libonate. “But it’s a hard thing to actually do.”
The company connects its business divisions in different ways depending on a client’s needs, along the way leveraging its packaged-goods knowledge as a foundation for every account, CPG or not. (Efforts for packaged goods brands account for 35 percent of net revenues.) The shop is known for telling clients exactly what they need to do — whether or not they initially want to hear it: It was Ryan that sent Heineken USA down the path to hipness by hooking up the then-stodgy beer brand with Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me in 1999.
Ryan (No. 16) posted a 47-percent hike in net revenues to $47.9 million over the last two years. The growth has been acquisition-free, fueled by new business wins and expanded assignments from existing accounts. Brands that hire the shop for one discipline (such as Heineken and Unilever) usually wind up giving additional business to other units and offices. (The company’s eight branch offices, which include operations in Toronto, Chicago, and Atlanta, now collectively generate more revenues than Westport headquarters). Despite a handful of deep account relationships, no client represents more than 10 percent of net revenues.
“This is an agency that looks at strategy first and then pushes what they believe in.”
— Michael Murphy, Unilever
The shop’s client list reads like a Who’s Who of promotion marketing (or like a CPG Hall of Fame): Agency of record accounts include Heineken, Kraft, Lipton, Mott’s, Nabisco, Pillsbury, and Unilever. Non-packaged AOR relationships include Bank One, MasterCard, and Mattel Canada. The project-basis list boasts General Mills, Kimberly-Clark, Michelin, Motorola, Starwood Hotels, and The Food Network.
Portfolio highlights from 2000 include Kraft’s online-offline Game of Life, music-themed work helping Heineken celebrate Black History Month, a licensing deal for Pillsbury that put holiday characters (Rudolph, Frosty) on cookie dough SKUs, a Food Network sweeps that had celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse cooking in a school cafeteria for a day, and a Reggie-winning baking contest that brought Pillsbury together with grocer Albertson’s on a California cause campaign. “This is an agency that looks at strategy first and then pushes what they believe in,” says Michael Murphy, director of promotions for New York City-based Unilever, a six-year client. “They really are true partners.”
Investments in the infrastructure over the last 18 months are paying off for both Ryan and its clients. The Toronto office established last year is helping facilitate a North American presence for brands. PanaVista, the Hispanic specialty unit launched in 1999, will first expand geographically (to digs inside the Ryan Atlanta office), then philosophically (to cover other ethnic groups).
More recently, Ryan launched Retail Zone a few miles from that retailer in Bentonville, AR, to get clients closer to mass merchandisers. A new online focus group service called Consumer POV, produced through a joint venture with research outfit PDI/Knowledge Networks, Fairfield, CT, will let brands establish dialogs with some 10,000 households. (The venture foots the bill for Internet TV service in exchange for consumer participation in electronic surveys.) And a recent initiative to add global legs should soon bring about a “best of breed” affiliation with other independent promotion shops around the world, first in Europe and Asia-Pacific, then in other regions.
The additional specialties are adding value to Ryan’s core services, which clients say are personalized, relevant, and results-oriented. Agency executives strive to maintain an environment in which their 331 employees will stick around long enough to climb through the ranks. “We created the kind of place where we ourselves would want to work,” says ceo David Ryan. The rank-and-file concur, applauding Ryan brass for listening, trusting, encouraging, and rewarding. “We ‘culture dip’ our people,” says Libonate. “Ryan culture and Ryan values lead to Ryan product.”
Sounds like Ryan Partnership knows where it’s going, as well as where it’s been.
