Memphis agency promises marketing results
In edgy times when Americans see lots of ads on their smartphones, Lori Turner-Wilson stands in a third-floor office of the Falls Building at 22 N. Front St. and holds a furry bundle. It’s a little dog named Gizzy. Memphians are used to brands grained into the public mind with catchy ideas, like FedEx Corp.’s “What’s Inside,” an advertisement airing during professional golf and football games.
Rarely have the creative people who conjure up the catchy ideas tried to brand themselves into the public mind. Now, Turner-Wilson has set out to do just that for her Memphis-based marketing firm, RedRover Co.
Her new campaign plays on Gizzy’s breed name under the naughty slogan “I Shih-Tzu Not.” Aimed at potential clients trying to find customers, the slogan means to focus attention on an unusual promise. RedRover will return part of a client’s payment if the marketing campaign the agency designs falls short of the predicted results.
Reading this right now you might think a new marketing strategy is hardly news — business people scheme relentlessly to get ahead. You would be right. But if you’ve thought of starting a business, and wonder where to find customers in the wide and deep ocean that is the internet, you might want to read on. Internet marketing Americans in their 20s and 30s are skeptical of most advertising, especially compared to their grandparents.
All this hands the two dozen or so advertising, communications, marketing, public relations and strategic consulting agencies in Memphis a challenge — get consumers to trust their clients. All the agencies are trying to do this. They mine data, craft relevant ads targeted at specific customers, plan marketing campaigns. RedRover, however, is the only one that has just put tall red letters on its street-side windows spelling “results.”
“We have something distinct. That’s why we went big and bold,’’ said TurnerWilson, chief executive officer and cofounder of 15-employee RedRover. “Not many organizations are willing to put their money where their mouth is to achieve measurable results.’’
Deploying a cash-back offer and fur-
ry dog isn’t meant to pull the FedEx account from giant New York ad agency BBDO. It’s meant for something else — pull in smaller firms trying to find a way to get ahead in the internet age.
Americans understand established brands like FedEx. Yet new and smaller firms often drift, unable to create a durable brand image online. RedRover pledges new brands can be built, even in an era known for an outright mistrust of advertising.
“People are more guarded today. There’s not nearly as much trust of advertising as there used to be,” said John Malmo, widely regarded as the dean of Memphis ad executives. “Print has lost the aura it had. TV and radio never had it. Digital is even more fleeting.’’
New world
For decades, readers tended to trust the facts published in their favorite newspapers and magazines, Malmo said, making journalism’s credibility like a halo over the ads printed on the pages. By the 2010 decade, however, younger Americans in particular had turned away from print.
Newspapers spread their trusted names online and built digital news brands, but never caught the full wave of millennials and their parents viewing social media. Of the 7.6 billion people living today, 3.2 billion people peruse Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other elements of social media that have wired the planet into a hive of humanity hooked to social media for 2 hours and 15 minutes on average every day worldwide, reports Hootsuite, a social media management firm founded in Vancouver, British Columbia.
This hive fascinates advertisers. Forecasts call for social media ad revenue this year to be $51.3 billion, Hootsuite reports. Meanwhile, U.S. newspaper industry ad revenue was projected to reach $16.5 billion last year, down from the 2006 peak of $49.2 billion. This decline in part reflects retailer struggles against online rivals such as Amazon. And it comes even though readership of digital news sites provided by the nation’s 50 largest newspapers climbed 40 percent between 2014 and 2017 to 11.5 million unique visitors per month, reports Washington think tank Pew Research Center.
Newspapers aren’t the only sector hit. Internet advertising has surpassed TV ad revenue, although major sports events can still command high ad prices geared to high viewership. A single 30second TV spot aired during a pro football game can surpass $500,000.
Few small firms can afford this, so they put ads on social media. Yet young adults on a site like Facebook can shun unknown brand names. RedRover’s September blog says: “Forty-two percent of consumers don’t trust brands, and it all comes down to one thing: authenticity.’’
Authentic brands
“Credulity has taken such enormous hits,” Malmo said. “I’m probably in the last generation that grew up in which the newspaper was the primary medium. I’m 85 years old. That leaves the last three generations that grew up with TV and the kind of play-acting I associate with people on TV. You used to hear people in my generation say, ‘I know it’s true. I read it in the newspaper.’ TV never had the credibility of newspapers. Now we have a new generation that grew up with social media and social media has less credibility than TV.”
Despite the thin credibility, Malmo said, hundreds of companies in Memphis need to figure out a social media strategy. So demand for the welter of services offered by Memphis communications agencies has soared. Salaries for public relations managers in the city have approached $100,000. To find enough able workers, RedRover recently hired Stacy Hancock, the director of talent acquisition.
“We’re probably at a high-water mark,” Malmo said, referring to the size of the city’s communications industry.
When Valerie Morris left a regional executive position at Caesars Entertainment in the Tunica County casino district, she founded Morris Marketing Group in Memphis. Even amid the recession here stretching into 2012, clients sought her out.
The agency now employs 10, Morris said, and handles about 30 customers including new client Ryan Daniel, a rising country-western singer living in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee.
“You have to have at least a million dollar company or you can’t afford us,” Morris said, noting sales volume for the typical client exceeds $5 million per year.
“I don’t want to have 50 to 100 employees,” Morris said. “We’re like a concierge service for clients. I want to keep it that way.”
Whether they turn to big outfits like BBDO, the 15,000-employee agency servicing FedEx, or small firms like Morris’, clients want to reach customers. Increasingly, they are told trust matters.
To hone in on the notion, agencies set out strategies to find potential customers for their clients on social media sites and put before the customers brand stories. These largely focus on the client, often the founder of the brand. And they’ve posted product reviews as well as consumer questions and answers. They’ve also turned to paid hands known as influencers.
Tony Allen
When pro basketball player Tony Allen, then a Memphis Grizzlies star, appeared as a spokesman for Memphis International Airport, he was like an influencer. RedRover organized the campaign, an endorsement partnership between the team and the airport, which was trying to rebuild ridership after Delta Air Lines downsized. Why rely on a sports start? “You have to give people a reason to want to connect to the brand,” TurnerWilson said.
Now, she has a cute little Shih Tzu making the same connection for RedRover.
Ted Evanoff, business columnist of The Commercial Appeal, can be reached at evanoff@commercialappeal.com and (901) 529-2292.