| RESPONSE 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY (AS SEEN IN ADNEWS) |
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| now we have a client who sells more when his ad gives 25 instead
of 50 percent discounts.Research would never have shown us that.What’s
more, we can’t explain it.But we can sure as heck capitalize on it.” Testing is a fundamental principal at Response Advertising. “We like to put clients in a position to learn,and to use what they learn to improve their results. Through the continual process of testing and challenging, we have a client who now sells about four times as much as he did when we started with him, and his budget hasn’t increased.” What about clients who don’t have as long to test and refine?“There’s a lot we know from what we’ve already tested,so at the very least we can help them start off from a knowledge base of what tends to work best.” If you want to see Cuno bristle,ask if he thinks measuring and testing stifles creativity. “Stifles? No. Channels, yes. Of course I’m proud of our creativity. But there’s danger in assuming that great creative work alone leads to market success. On the other hand, if you think it does, there are plenty of other agencies to help you.” On August 1, 2004,Response Advertising will celebrate its tenth anniversary with more active clients, more recognition, and more employees than ever. Yet this agency by no means sprouted overnight. Its story is one of steady, under-the-radar growth, with 2003 being the year substantial clients began calling them. I asked Cuno why he thought Response Advertising was doing so well. Leaning back in a blue leather chair behind his large, cherry wood desk, he said,“We’ve been very, very fortunate.” If the subtle smile hadn’t disappeared as he spoke, it might have been easy to pass off his answer as false modesty.But I could tell he meant it. “Sure,we work hard, and we have talent,” he went on. “So does any |
agency. But look at the excellent people who work at Response
Advertising. We only went looking for one of them. The rest happened to
show up when they were needed.Look at our clients. Some we were lucky enough
to prospect at the right time, some were referred, but many simply stumbled
through our doors when we happened to be ready. And, we’ve overcome
some pretty significant setbacks. Sometimes I’m tempted to make our
slogan, “The ad agency that just won’t go away.” Shortly after finishing college (“back when I knew everything,” he muses), Cuno became First Security Corporation’s (now Wells Fargo) youngest marketing communications manager. Later positions included freelance writer/producer, Intermountain Health Care’s first corporate advertising manager, and a partner in Smith Harrison Direct (now Studeo Interactive). In 1994, he sold his shares to SHD and opened what is today the area’s leader in accountable advertising. When he talks about “overcoming some pretty significant setbacks,” Cuno’s penchant for understatement comes through. When the agency was in its second year and thriving, Cuno’s wife Paula passed away from breast cancer,two months short of what would have been their eighteenth wedding anniversary. Making matters worse, Response Advertising had lost three anchor clients the preceding month.“I resigned the first one,” Cuno said, “not knowing that, within weeks, the next would go bankrupt and the last would fire us. And I had no idea that, on top of all that, I was about to become a single, depressed dad.” There was no choice but to lay off staff. The agency, down again to just Cuno, floundered for ten months. Then began what Cuno calls “the first round of good fortune.” A friend and client took an interest in the business, became a |
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