Biggs Gilmore
AGENCY OF THE YEAR
Lean years provided agency with forward-thinking
perspective that inspired digital work for Kellogg’s
; BY TIFFANY MEYERS adageeditor@adage.com
IN OCTOBER 2000, Mike Gerfen and
Jane Tamraz finalized the deal on their
purchase of Kalamazoo, Mich., agency
Biggs Gilmore, where they’d previously
been account leads. That left barely
enough time for a champagne toast before
the economy collapsed around them.
As many of the agency’s clients struggled, the partners had to lay off about half
the 100-person staff. “From the start, we
were operating in a hole,” said the
agency’s president, Mr. Gerfen.
Today, Biggs Gilmore is a 106-person
digital player with a second office in
Chicago. Reporting $10.1 million in 2009
revenue, the shop is the interactive
agency of record for brands such as Heinz
Ketchup, Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies,
Pop-Tarts, Cottonelle, Corn Pops and
Morningstar Farms, among other con-sumer-package-goods titans.
What happened in the interim was
that Biggs Gilmore leveraged the primary
advantage of its small stature: dexterity.
While the agency was hemorrhaging traditional advertising opportunities, the
partners recognized the opportunity to
help companies navigate the digital realm.
Biggs Gilmore started building what
it calls a “development department” that
now boasts project-management capaci-ties, a slew of awards and expertise in
search marketing, social media and analytics.
In 2003, the agency’s first digital brand
assignment for Kellogg’s Apple Jacks was
a turning point. That Apple Jacks already
had a brand agency of record, Leo Burnett,
was fine by Biggs Gilmore, one of whose
strengths is a penchant for realism.
“As an agency in a place called
Kalamazoo, we recognized that we were
never going to become a brand agency
for Fortune 100 CPG companies,” said
Ms. Tamraz, CEO. “But we saw an
opportunity, through our digital compe-
tencies, to live alongside the brand-
agency relationships those companies
already had.”
The 2010 “Roll Poll” for Cottonelle, a
client for which the agency collaborates
with agency of record JWT and WPP
media agency MindShare, allowed users
to vote in an online debate about toilet-
paper-rolling preferences that spilled onto
Facebook and Twitter. In three months,
the campaign for an otherwise low-
involvement category attracted 2. 2 mil-
lion video downloads and 3,800 daily
social-media interactions.
RUNNER-UP: PARTNERS & NAPIER
It’s not often that the word
“partners” appears in front
of top agency executives in
an agency’s name. But at
Partners & Napier, the name
is a reflection of the agency’s
philosophy.
“We fundamentally
believe that no one is
successful on their own,”
said Sharon Napier,
president-CEO of Partners &
Napier. “It’s about the
collection of people to make
the work successful.”
In six years, Partners &
Napier has grown from 40
employees to 144, with
2009 revenue of
$17 million—more than a 14%
jump in revenue from 2008.
Not bad, especially
considering the recession.
The partnership
philosophy at the agency
extends to the agency’s
relationships with clients.
Leslie Dance, worldwide VP-
brand marketing and
communications at Kodak,
said, the shop “is an
extension of our own team.
Our brand is in their DNA. I
think you can contribute a
lot of our success to the
partnership with Partners &
Napier.”
Partners & Napier
created a campaign for
Kodak called “People
Against Big Ink,” a website
for Kodak inkjet printers.
The website aggregated
consumer commentary
about Kodak and its
competition in the inkjet-
printer space from social
media, blogs and customer-
review sites.
