In an office above a cafeteria on Peachtree Street sits a man who speaks slowly and smiles quickly.
There’s nothing pretentious about this man or his office, none of the sandblasted brick of King Plow, the neon of Tower Place, or the exposed infrastructure of the monolithic downtown lofts so feverishly vogue.
Yet from this place, a product is being launched that will change the lives of the 250,000 Hispanic citizens living in Atlanta and their loved ones throughout Latin America.
But unless you’ve paid attention to Atlanta’s minority advertising scene, chances are you’ve never heard of Dan Vargas and his agency, Vargas, Flores & Amigos, though he and partner Tony Flores have worked for decades with creative giants and Fortune 100 companies alike.
This is what Atlanta is. A city where the obvious goes unseen. Especially by those closest to the subject at hand.
But this is not a story about Vargas, Flores & Amigos. Or Austin Kelley. Or any single one of the agencies or people you’ll see profiled here. Because indeed, these 12 agencies represent only a few of the Atlanta shops doing national work.
Instead, this is a story about Atlanta and Advertising and the long, bittersweet love affair between the two.
By the end of it you’ll understand that Atlanta already is what it wants to be.
A national presence.
In advertising. And because of it.
Even at the time of his death last year, Austin Kelley, the man, was a southern gentleman of the old school, the old ways. The agency he created was known for its quiet good work for drowsy old resorts and real estate developments.
But in 1991, Kelley hired Jim Spruell. With his rock-star swagger and country singer’s heart, Spruell helped Kelley send a wake-up call to agency and clients alike. The key word is "helped."
"The mindset to change started at the top," says SVP/CD Mark Robinson. "Austin, Geoff [Nixon, CEO] and Jay [Shields, COO] were truly ready to do something different with the agency."
That something different, says SVP/ECD Spruell, "is a culture that’s knee-deep in integrity, but a little more fun, a little more focused on the work. We’ve nurtured a staff and an environment where people have a good time but take the work intensely seriously."
The result for Spruell, Robinson, and their hungry young staff is a sheaf of stunning national credits ranging from The One Show, CA and Archive to, the most delicious of all, The Kelly Awards.
This year, competing against mythic agencies like Arnold, Goodby, Chiat Day, Wieden, Crispin Porter, and Carmichael Lynch, Austin Kelley walked off with the Kelly for "Best New Work from a New Team."
"To say we’re proud is an understatement," says Spruell. "We’ve always been seen as a nice agency. Now we’re seen as a great bunch of folks who do killer work."
Somewhere, Austin Kelley, the man, is smiling.
Ron Huey doesn’t sleep well. It isn’t because he worries about business, though starting an agency in a city sporting close to 300 shops would frighten most people.
What keeps Huey awake is knowing that somewhere, his old compadres are still at their desks doing great work.
"Whenever I want to quit," he says, "I remember Luke Sullivan is in his office pushing it. And that pushes me."
Whatever the push, it works. Huey/Paprocki won major gold at the local Addys and the regional ShowSouth awards this year. But, that’s not where these two set the bar. "We got a campaign in The One Show this year," says Huey. "Without that, all the gold Addys wouldn’t mean much. As a whole, this community hasn’t seen past the city limits sign."
From the business perspective, they agree.
Huey: "This region has so much business, there’s no need to venture outside. And as far as clients being conservative, I don’t believe that for a second."
The Bible belt is loosening, perhaps, along with the myth that agencies stand or fall on creative alone. "In Minneapolis," says Paprocki, "every discipline has a brilliant, professional advertising person with a hard core passion for the business."
Huey and Paprocki are among the most-laureled creatives in Atlanta. Between them, they have Lions, Kelly’s, Pencils, and Clios.
But they only display the new stuff, in a bookcase already too small for its load. But how do you display a thousand web sites, anyway? Or the heaven that is a golf account?
Huey/Paprocki works out of the old ballroom of The Highland Inn, known in the 40’s for the best swing dancing in Atlanta. The floor is 70-year old terrazzo; the ceiling is vintage pressed tin. Late at night, when these golden boys are dreaming of the 17th hole at St. Andrews, the faint sounds of laughter and tinkling glass puff and swirl around the room.
Then as now, there is Star Dust in the air.
By all rights, Luke Sullivan should be a prima donna of the highest order. All those years at Fallon. All those awards.
Instead, he is boyish and funny and generous and, well, nice.
He laughs at the thought, but Sullivan is the biggest thing to hit Atlanta advertising since the Southern Airways spot in the 1970’s. That one commercial, created by McDonald & Little and directed by a young Joe Sedelmaier, immediately focused national attention on Atlanta. So has Luke Sullivan.
But Sullivan sees only the "big, beautiful brands" here. Especially one dear to his heart: BellSouth.
"You know the way some agencies look beyond a client to the next big client? Well, this IS the big client."
He also loves American Cyanamid. Love? A herbicide? Absolutely. Passion for his clients is part of Sullivan’s great gift, and a lesson for those who would follow him.
"The Prowl campaign is stunning," he says. "But it isn’t rocket science. This is a product. You figure out what it offers, what people want, and you put the two together."
Back in the 1980’s, when Fallon ruled, southern agencies struggled to hit the national radar screen, some successfully. But today, post-Olympics, the timing feels right.
"Atlanta has an enormous talent pool," says Sullivan. "Two of the nation’s best schools are pumping out talent here. It’s all just waiting for a great client, a brave client, to leap in."
And a brave local Addys, too, he believes. If Minneapolis can publish a local annual by show night, so can Atlanta.
"Atlanta should do it. Wait, should isn’t strong enough," he concludes. "I’ll say have to. We HAVE TO."
He says it nicely. But he means it.
After nearly 30 years in the business, Jim Paddock still says "darn." There’s a sweetness in him that time hasn’t touched. Like Luke Sullivan, he’s a good man who can write like hell.
Case in point, the AFLAC television ads. The spots are luminous, elegant. Better still, the campaign is working for AFLAC. And odds are, it will work for Fitzgerald, too.
"When you do great work on a local basis, and good or even darn good work on a national basis, it opens doors," admits Paddock.
"AFLAC allowed us to be an ally in the strategic part of their business," he says. "To show what we can deliver early in the process, strategically, in terms of national and even global kinds of efforts."
The agency’s work for the Television Bureau of Advertising is the opposite end of the spectrum. Where AFLAC is heartfelt, TVB is aggressive. So much so, that the first TVB spot was yanked from the air after one run, despite rave creative reviews.
"The only thing consistent between those two campaigns," said Paddock, "was depth of strategy, consumer insight, and high production values."
Paddock is Chief Creative Officer of Fitzgerald & Company, bought last year by Interpublic and merged with another Interpublic property, McCann-Erickson.
"We were bought because of our entrepreneurial spirit," said Paddock, "and merged for critical mass. Now we can compete nationally and internationally."
"But," he says, and this is the darn truth, "the only important thing is now and always will be the quality of the idea."
J. Walter Thompson is one of the country’s oldest agencies, and has seen more than its share of change since the 1880’s.
Maybe that’s why they are drawn to the epic. They’ve seen the sweep and span of time and can’t help but reflect it in their work.
On the other hand, maybe they like to travel.
Thompson’s latest work has taken them to the legendary golf courses of Scotland and Ireland. Bally Bunion and Tralee, for example.
The client is Slazenger, a golf ball born in "The Kingdom," a colorful phrase referencing the European genesis of the game. Like the theme line says, that’s as good as it gets.
So is this work? Unlike Thompson’s fiery productions for the Marines, Slazenger has a haunting, Braveheart feel to it.
"We wanted to capture the ball’s heritage," says Group Creative Director Scott Nelson. "No other golf ball company has this history, this legacy."
As for Thompson’s legacy, this work reflects a loosening of the buttons on the proverbial three-piece suit, says Nelson.
(When word gets out that ECD Mike Lollis’ 8-handicap helped him hold his own with Tiger Woods, the suit’s history, anyway.)
Ogilvy & Mather also has a suit thing going. Only these days, the suit is likely to be a black Speedo with matching kneepads.
Ogilvy’s newest client is the country’s newest craze: World Championship Wrestling.
For the record, WCW is the good guy of wrestling. There’s no gore, no sleaze, no mock castration. Just edgy, unpredictable, over-the-top entertainment.
"The challenge was to reflect that for the fan," says ECD Steve Sarri, an import from O&M New York. "Wrestling is genuine theatre. Is it real? That’s not the issue. At the end of the day, it’s about entertainment."
And branding. Sophisticated, integrated branding that started at the top with a smart, focused client.
"Branding can take on a lot of different faces," Sarri says. "In every case, it’s a matter of finding the essence of the brand."
The essence of this brand is imagination. And the work is likely to lead to new and exciting things for Ogilvy.
The moral: if the Speedo fits, wear it.
The mark of a true professional isn’t in the glamour stuff.
It’s in the work they do every day for building products and parts manufacturers. And any agency that can do consistently excellent work in hard categories deserves a shot at something ritzy.
Sawyer Riley Compton is that agency. And this year, their strength in the ‘not-an-easy-thing-to-do’ category won them the Ritz-Carlton itself.
"You can do good work for any client," says SVP/CD Bart Cleveland, "if you keep your focus on their market and have a clear brand message."
Sawyer’s work for Eaton Corporation focuses on this: It’s Eaton or it’s obsolete. For James Hardie Building Products, the message was softer, closer to home. "A big part of that was we listened to the needs of the client," Cleveland said. "We did something on-target brand wise, but we didn’t settle for the ordinary idea."
It could be because Cleveland himself doesn’t settle for the ordinary. "The question we should ask isn’t why Atlanta isn’t competing nationally," he says, "but why are we, as individuals, not doing so?"
And that’s the hardest question of all.
Last year, MATCH’s B.A. Albert won the Ad Club’s Silver Medal Award for her contributions to the Atlanta advertising community. It was the fourth time in 39 years the club honored a woman.
T.G. Madison’s Joanne Truffleman was also nominated. And gave B.A. (nobody calls Albert, Albert) a solid run for her money.
Both of these women co-own their agencies. Both rank dogs above most creatures on the earth. And both agencies invest heavily in work for pro/low-bono clients in Atlanta and around the country.
Beyond that, they are night and day.
At the tender age of three, MATCH is making it into pitches they shouldn’t make. Not by the standard measurements, anyway. Chupa Chups against Fallon and Richards. Cox Communications against BBDO South. Mindspring radio against Richards and Butler-Shine.
MATCH won the Mindspring radio account, but before they pitched it, they called Mindspring’s print agency, Huey/Paprocki to sorta/kinda run it by them.
That’s the B.A./Elizabeth honor system. Elizabeth Baskin is co-owner and principal of MATCH (nobody calls Baskin, Baskin.)
"We can help each other," B.A. says. "There’s no reason why we can’t have several great agencies in this city."
"Our success doesn’t exclude other people’s success," says Elizabeth.
MATCH plays nice. But they play for keeps.
T.G. Madison has been at it a decade longer than Match. Partners Lauren Genkinger and Joanne Truffleman have been at it longer still. And new President/Chief Creative Officer Virgil Schutze eats agencies older than this one for breakfast.
Among their national clients are Kimberly-Clark, MetLife, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, and the American Cancer Society.
T.G. Madison is mulling over an issue young agencies would do well to consider: the value clients’ place on size.
For better or worse, this is a business that loves big. "Getting that first 33 million behind you takes sooooooo long." says Genkinger. So many Atlanta agencies hover around that mark - not big, not small - that competition for top accounts is very, very tough.
"There are a handful of good agencies here," Genkinger muses. "If we all decided to band together, we could have a great one."
Hmmmmmm.
Freebairn & Company understands the advantages of "banding together" more than most.
The agency was born Cascino & Purcell, became Freebairn & Company, and kept that name after merging with Wilson, Horne, McClelland & Grey in 1997.
The agencies had occasionally traded accounts and people, says VP/Creative Rich Halten, so there was never a culture clash.
Quite the opposite. President John Freebairn has created what Halten calls "a very comfortable, humanistic corporate culture. People aren’t considered disposable here."
The agency’s largest client grew from Freebairn’s roots. To a farm boy, an international agriculture account was a dream. Today the agency handles 30 different products for AgrEvo, ‘the German GE.’
Other national accounts include Leica Binoculars and Scopes, Glen Eden custom carpets (Madonna’s favorite), and YKK Zippers.
Freebairn is now Atlanta’s 12th largest agency. That’s another benefit to the mergers, says Halten. "Now we’re ready to go after bigger and better things."
Rudy Fernandez has worked at agencies of every size. From Babbit & Reiman to Fahlgren to Crispin & Porter.
(He also has the distinction of having worked with Alex Bogusky before The Great One walked on water.)
TFT was founded in 1992 by Jamie Turner, who later hired his father, retired O&M/EPB Honcho, Mike Turner. Fernandez came on as CD in 1997 and the name changed this year.
The shop won early kudos for Shallowford Vasectomy Center. Remember "Honk if you’re sterile"?
The TFT vision is simple, hopeful: To work with people, including clients, who understand that every person on an account is responsible for the end product.
Current national clients include CNN, Interland (web hosting), The Primrose Schools (high-end preschool), and Security First Network Bank.
But the truth, says Fernandez, "is that we attack everything as if it were national. Everything we do showcases our client and reflects how we think."
TFT’s reputation brings them into important pitches, but as happens for in-between agencies, demon size sometimes calls the play.
Not to worry. "Growth doesn’t come in a slant," says Fernandez. "It’s an up, a dip down. Another up, a dip down. That’s normal."
So far, it’s been all ups for this agency.
There was a time when axed Burton-Campbell staffers planned a T-shirt with tire tracks down the back. Ryder Truck tracks, specifically.
The loss of that account to a New York shop, by and large because it was a New York shop, eventually felled the heir to McDonald & Little’s claim as Atlanta’s largest independent agency.
Like McDonald & Little before it, Burton-Campbell disappeared in a merger, but that’s another story, the old story, the only story, really, in advertising.
BC had the lion’s share of Atlanta’s national work in the early 1980’s, with blue-chip clients like Vail and Sunbeam, and an Atlanta telecom company named Southern Bell, which BC re-launched as BellSouth.
"National work begets national work," says Ron Scharbo. "And the return on resources is greater." He should know. Scharbo headed Burton-Campbell and now heads a feisty little agency bearing his name.
Scharbo’s company includes his writer/voice talent wife, Sarah Cotton Scharbo, famous now around the country as the "Big Haired Lady" of Longhorn Steaks.
Scharbo & Company put Longhorn on the map with a radio campaign voted IBC’s "Best In The World" in 1991. Longhorn slipped off for an affair with Crispin & Porter once, but soon came home to Scharbo and sales accelerated into a NASDAQ launch.
His success with Longhorn led Scharbo to dabble in the restaurant business himself (starting Canoe) and he now handles two new national restaurants, Palm-competitor The Capitol Grille and a casual dining concept called Bugaboo Creek.
Today, Scharbo measures success by quality relationships, not size.
"We’re not just out to grow the business," he says. "We meet with people and if it feels right, we do it. The thing that drives so many people today is this overhead monster they create and then have to feed."
His advice to young agencies? "Keep being selective."
If there’s a postscript, it’s this. Watch out for trucks.
Atlanta could be the only city in the United States created by advertising.
In the late 1880’s, the International Cotton Exposition made Atlanta "one of the best advertised" cities in the country.
In the late 1920’s, an advertising campaign called "Forward Atlanta" went after national business tooth and nail. Among others, that effort brought home Sears Roebuck, Bell-Aircraft (now Lockheed Georgia) and a little crop dusting operation that grew up into Delta Air Lines.
Delta had plenty of help from Atlanta ad man Burke Dowling Adams. Just as Billy Payne had plenty of help from the Atlanta advertising and design firms who put their hearts into winning the 1996 Olympics, only to find themselves on the sidelines when the paying work came along.
This is what Atlanta is. A city that knows how to build business. And has learned how hard it is to be recognized for it.
Fair warning. That’s over.