Sorry, we just had a little tiff," laughs Jack Cohn, president of the recently formed Cohn & Co., New York. "See, that’s how we work," he continues, nudging the company’s sales rep, Randi Arnold, with whom he has been discussing, or rather, arguing company strategy. Cohn and Arnold, along with fellow Lovinger/Cohn & Associates alumnus, executive producer Tony Cunningham, have been in their roomy, comfortable new digs in the New York neighborhood of Chelsea for just a few weeks.
"We’re experiencing all of the agony and ecstasy of a new, growing company," says Cohn. "We’re furnishing it, figuring out the menus, and getting frustrated because people don’t know our phone number. This is something we’re not used to-we’re always getting calls."
After 13 years of partnership with director Jeff Lovinger, Cohn decided to form his own company and the N. Y.-based Lovinger/Cohn establishment came to an end in what Cohn calls an "amicable" split. (Jeff Lovinger has since set up his own company, Lovinger Mahoney Adelson, N. Y.) Cohn attributes the parting of ways to a desire to acquire a slightly different outlook for the company. "When you’ve been in business for 13 years with somebody, you have a certain style of working and there’s a perception in the business in terms of who you are," says Cohn. "I wanted a different profile of directors joining our company and it wasn’t going to happen at Lovinger/ Cohn."
So far, however, the profile remains the same at Cohn & Co., which represents two former Lovinger/Cohn directors, Paul Cade and Paul Goldman. Cade’s recent credits include "Hands" for Ford via J. Walter Thompson, Detroit, and "Cordless Phone" for Ameritech out of Ammirati Puris Lintas, Chicago. Goldman is responsible for, among others, "Yearly Raise" for the New York Lottery via Grey Advertising, New York, and "Unconditional," for Companion Animal Placement out of Suburban Advertising, Jersey City, N.J., a PSA which won a Gold Lion at Cannes last year.
Cohn hopes to sign more directors. "You have to fulfill all of their needs in terms of their expectations, before you can add on, so that you can manage them properly," he says. This means, in Arnold’s opinion, laying out a marketing plan which considers what the directors aspire to do three or even five years down the line. "We want to talk about who their mentors are, and try to set realistic goals that we can accomplish, step by step."
Cohn insists the company wants to advance directors in their careers, and as a result they have to remain selective about which jobs to take. "The last commercial you did at an agency is what the agency remembers you for."
This type of career management philosophy is partially what made Lovinger/Cohn so successful, according to Cohn. "Because at the end of the day, if a director leaves, we have to take responsibility. It is our fault."
Cohn feels that his own sales background as well as having an in-house sales rep may be a major attraction to the directors he hopes to recruit. "When you’re an independent repping company, all you can do is bring in the work. But here it is not about the almighty commission-we’re thinking about the director’s career five years from now. With an outside rep, if a director asks the company producer, ‘What are you doing for me?’ Well, the answer is, ‘I don’t know, I’ve got to call the repping company.’ Here the director knows the two of us are in a spat because we’re trying to figure out how to get better sales going. And he knows we care because otherwise we wouldn’t have these emotional things going on."
Arnold relates that, besides recruitment, the company’s other mission is building the shop brand name. "You build a brand," says Arnold, "and it has a certain identity, and then you want to reshape it." According to Arnold, the company identity is related to its expertise in creating high-end dialogue spots, storytelling and humor. "We want to create the kind of company where people know what we stand for."
Cohn sees its New York location as a definite advantage because of the emphasis on sales and marketing. "This is where most of the agencies are and there are also a good number of directors you find here who get their training in videos, or on Comedy Central, among other interesting venues." The East Coast, he points out, can also be a resource for directors who switch from agencies, much like Paul Goldman, who was a creative at Deutsch, N. Y., before starting his own company, now defunct Flatiron Films. He later signed on with Lovinger/Cohn.
Cohn is certainly not opposed to opening a West Coast branch if the right opportunity arises. "If we start talking to a great L.A. director, we’d definitely consider opening up an office out there based on that director."
As for the company’s new vision, there seems to be much emphasis on flexibility. "We used to agonize over changes. We don’t agonize anymore. If it feels good, let’s do it. You’re just not encumbered by the whole philosophy that says, we’ve always done it this way. That’s not discussed here. We may have done it that way-is there a better way? Let’s change it." says Cohn.
"We want to take the solid and sophisticated style of Lovinger/Cohn, but open up into something a little more modern," adds Arnold. "We just explore lots of different things and talk about them to death."u
