Regional ad firms compete against national firms and win

Charleston is certainly not Madison Avenue. And most locals like it that way. Many have fled the grid-like streets of New York for the relative calm of the Holy City.

But one area where Charleston is starting to make a name for itself, and compete directly with the big boys on Madison Avenue and in Los Angeles, is advertising. Local firms may not be winning the accounts of Coca Cola, Ford or Intel, but they are winning their fare share of large and national clients.

Davis Advertising Inc., for example, a 25-year-old Charleston advertising, marketing and public relations firm, recently announced its selection to represent several national accounts, including Carolina Skiff, Hagemeyer North America and LS Starrett Co.

Carolina Skiff is one of the largest boat manufacturers in the country, producing more than 4,500 boats per year. Hagemeyer N.A. is the American subsidiary of a 100-year-old Dutch company that now focuses on business-to-business markets in electrical materials, safety products and industrial products. LS Starrett Co. is a publicly traded, 125-year-old tool manufacturing company that makes more than 5,000 products.

"All of these types of accounts require that you operate with professionalism; that is what gets the clients to return to you for business," says Nat Davis, president of Davis Advertising. "We feel we can run with anybody. All of our recent big deals have happened in the last six months, and we're in direct competition with companies that have $100 million in billing. (The customers) like the way we do business. They get a national-level advertiser without all of the Madison Avenue baggage."

David Rawle, chairman of the Charleston-based public relations and advertising firm Rawle Murdy Associates, agrees, saying the ease of communication and data transmission has rendered physical location a largely moot factor in determining where companies shop for firms to handle their advertising and marketing work.

"A great many have moved out of the traditional markets, and rising areas in advertising include Richmond, Seattle and Miami," Murdy says. "Just because you have more of something in one location doesn't necessarily mean it's better. With advertising, it's all about the creativity of thinking and the discipline of the solutions."

But the people involved in advertising know that it's largely a game of name recognition. If you're a small ad firm from a small town, you have to do something to get noticed in order to get national clients. "We have been working on developing ourselves over time," says Davis. "We worked for some time with Commscope, the largest manufacturer of coaxial cable in the world, and worked our way into the high tech arena through that. We did work with Starrett in the past, they liked our stuff and the projects kept coming and kept the relationship going. When they created a hardware division, they said 'come on over' and re-hired us to work with them."

Carolina Skiff, based in Waycross, Ga., is owned by several Wall Street investors, and winning this account was a different matter, however. Davis entered into a competitive bidding process along with more than 25 other agencies to win the coveted client. Davis says the company won the bid due in large part to the firm's knowledge of boating, something he credits to the company's coastal location.

"Advertising companies here are less encumbered by the bureaucracies of large firms, and if one of those large firms is publicly held, there's the risk of their loyalty running more toward their shareholders than their clients," says Rawle. "Companies that are enormous in size and have a great number of divisions don't tend to work as collaboratively or as constructively as those smaller companies in a market like Charleston."

THE CHARLESTON DIFFERENCE

While Charleston companies largely don't feel hindered by their distance from New York and Los Angeles, they do feel the Holy City's reputation helps when it comes to landing marquee clients.

"Clients don"t care if you're in New York or Los Angeles or Atlanta," says Davis. "As a company you can't be afraid to walk in and get their attention. People like to do business in Charleston because there's a perception that the business is comfortable and there's a universal appeal that surrounds the town, and we definitely use that to our advantage."

The area's attractions, including ­Spoleto, the ports, the S.C. Aquarium, historical preservation, beaches and resorts, means Charleston has a unique appeal, Rawle says. "Companies want to come here and have an association with a world-class city," he says. "Charleston has a cache, and people have an interest in looking in Charleston rather than a standard metropolitan statistical area of a similar size."

While the geographic location of a company has little to do with its potential success, launching in a large metropolitan region does have benefits, they admit. Getting started where others have paved the way is easier, but does not necessarily guarantee success.

"The only detriment we have here is the paucity of corporate headquarters," Rawle says. "Traditionally, an agency market grows where there are a lot of corporate headquarters. But even that trend is starting to get bucked. If an agency can handle its business, it will find that any limitations are limitations of the mind, not limitations of the facts."

LOCAL FIRM WINS NATIONAL AWARD

When small firms compete head to head with big firms, often the big firm walks away with the glory, the accolades and the money. But in a modern David vs. Goliath, a local advertising firm comprised of three young men showed that size matters little. Slant Media, a relative newcomer to the Charleston advertising landscape, last year won the National Gold American Advertising Federation's ADDY award for interactive media for the design of the company's Web site, Slantmedia.net.

While the company had already won several regional awards, it was the first national award for the young firm. Since then, the company has taken off says, Christopher Cecil, Slant Media's director of creative intelligence. "It was very humbling to win this award," says Cecil. "We only have three employees and just moved into our office space. It's been a wild year. There's always the fear that the next year could be a letdown, but things have gotten very, very busy for us." The company, which specializes in broadcast, Web, print, DVD and DVD-ROM marketing, recently found a real estate gem on King Street with the help of Charleston's Digital Corridor.

As with many start-ups, it had previously operated out of one of the founding partner's living room. Slant Media was started with capital from Cecil and co-founder Grier Allen, who were students and fraternity brothers at Clemson University.

Since winning the national ADDY, their client roster has grown and they have nearly recouped their starting expenses, Grier says. "The ADDY award was not to be awarded based on budget or clientele," says Cecil. "It was to be awarded for its uniqueness in how it presented information and its overall creativity. I don't know who was in the running with us, but other winners that night included BMW North America, Fed Ex, the Discovery Channel and the Discover Card."

Some of the company's early clients include the South Carolina Aquarium, Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, Prudential Carolina Real Estate, and the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners.

"In 2005, we're going to focus on establishing ourselves as a full time agency," Cecil says. "After the high of last year, we need to focus on our total design. We're trying to blur the line between traditional and more modern marketing techniques."

The company has already gained a following locally, and is slowly branching out, with additional clients in Charlotte, N.C. Both founders agree that 2005 will involve focusing on customers before themselves. They plan to slowly expand, but only as the business warrants.