This year, SHOOT’s Agency of the Year is Fallon Minneapolis, part of the Fallon Worldwide network, which in turn is a part of Publicis Groupe. This is the second time the shop has received the honor: In 1996, Fallon McElligott, then independently owned, was SHOOT’s Agency of the Year.
Fallon excelled and broke new ground in a number of ways this year: with its series of short films for BMW that aired on the carmaker’s Web site; with a campaign for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that captured two Emmy nominations for best primetime commercial, and the award itself; with moving work for United Airlines after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11; and with continuing strong work for Lee Jeans, Holiday Inn, Citibank and others.
From back in the early ’70s—when Fallon chairman Pat Fallon and his partner, Tom McElligott, started moonlighting for local clients that were too small to interest the pair’s day-job Minneapolis agencies—creativity has been a watchword.
In ’81, the pair took the plunge, with three other partners, and opened its own ad shop: Fallon McElligott. The founding partners were Fallon; Irv Fish, COO; Fred Senn, partner; and Nancy Rice and McElligott, who are no longer with the shop. "From day one, we wanted to be the best creative agency in the United States," Fallon recalls. "Our vision was kind of embarrassing because we started with no clients. Our competitors in this marketplace kind of put their arms around us and said, ‘What are you doing? Why can’t you be satisfied with being a great local agency or regional agency?’ We just didn’t even understand the question, let alone how to respond."
Today, Fallon has about 500 employees in Minneapolis, New York and London, with billings estimated at more than $900 million across all of its offices. In January, new offices will open in Hong Kong, Singapore and São Pãulo, Brazil. And Fallon emphasizes that everything has grown out of the original vision of creativity as the foundation of the agency. "Everything that went from there evolved around creativity," he says. "It starts there and it goes all through our culture and it’s very unambiguous. It’s what we come to work to do every day."
But what perhaps sets Fallon apart from some other agencies with strong creative bona fides is that Fallon prides itself on the hard work it does to come up with the right approaches to client needs, and on the recognition that the best creative content in the world isn’t worth a damn if it doesn’t benefit the client.
"We’re very, very tied to the power of creativity as an economic multiplier," states Fallon.
Or, as David Lubars, president/executive creative director, puts it: "There are a lot of agencies that claim creativity, and a lot that have it. But if it doesn’t give the client disproportionately high value for the money—that ‘economic multiplier’—then it’s not very useful. That becomes gratuitous creativity just to entertain, instead of actually moving people."
Car Keys
A case in point is this year’s effort for BMW of North America: a television and print campaign that leads viewers to five short Internet films. All fall under the umbrella title The Hire, and all were helmed by top feature directors. This concept alone represents a level of advertising creativity that could be an agency capstone. But Lubars explains that the campaign was much more than a good idea well executed. "This wasn’t just to come up with something cool," he explains. "We realized that the BMW customer is a fairly moneyed person who travels a lot, doesn’t watch that much TV anymore, but has a big, powerful computer on his desk. So instead of fighting to try and make him see our commercial, it’s kind of like judo—you let his weight bring him toward you and pull him down."
And the concept worked even better than expected. "What we didn’t realize was that it was going to become almost like a retail campaign and close sales," Lubars continues. "It became almost a point-of-sale thing in their computers. BMW had the best May through October in their history. I’m not saying May through Sept. 11—I’m saying May through October." (See separate story, p. 30.)
To maximize the buzz that they anticipated from the films, the creatives involved emphasized the directors and kept a low profile for themselves and BMW. "We didn’t put our names all over it, on the theory that as soon as you do that, it’s only going to be written about in advertising sections," states Lubars. "It was on the cover of the New York Times arts section. It was in all these business sections and car enthusiast magazines. It wasn’t about our egos; it was what was right for the client."
Lubars calls the project Fallon’s creative highlight of the year, and says still more agency creativity is involved than appears on the screen and in the campaign’s evolution. "You could also argue that the player that you use to view the films on the Web—which our interactive group came up with—also represents creativity," he points out. "It was so beautifully done that it almost gave you a DVD experience, even though it was coming through the same wires that the other scratchy stuff you see comes through. That was extraordinary creativity, but it’s not what most agencies would define as creativity."
TV Focus
Pat Fallon is quick to acknowledge that his shop is a strong television agency. "We’re more than that, but we’re a very strong TV agency," he stresses. "I think we have a very wide palette of approaches. In terms of consistency, if you look at our reel, across all our work, I don’t know of anybody that has as wide a range."
Lubars, who joined Fallon in ’98 from BBDO West, Los Angeles, where he was CEO/chief creative officer, is a proponent of what he calls the "invisible hand" theory of TV advertising. "Many agencies, particularly the creative ones, have a style," he relates. "You look at it and say, ‘Oh, that’s a typical so-and-so spot.’ A certain way they shoot it, and they have a joke at the end. A certain kind of casting. We have no Fallon template. If you look at the reel you won’t say, ‘Oh, there’s a certain agency way they do things.’ Every client has its own distinct voice and tone and personality. We function as the invisible hand bringing the client to the consumer. Fallon’s out of it."
The proof is on the reel. Take last year’s hilarious "Cat Herders"—along with this year’s "Airplane" and "Running With the Squirrels"—for EDS, directed by John O’Hagan of bicoastal/international hungry man. Or continuing comedy work like the "Mark" campaign for Holiday Inn, which includes "Conference Room," helmed by Jesse Peretz of bicoastal X-Ray Productions, and the "But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night" campaign for Holiday Inn Express. Or Citibank Pro spots like "Delivery Room" and "College Tuition," both directed by Craig Gillespie of bicoastal Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ), that put a funny spin on financial planning. Then there is the PBS "Stay curious" campaign, including the Emmy-winning "Photo Booth." And on the most serious of notes is the United Airlines campaign in which United employees talk extemporaneously about life after the Sept. 11 attacks.
When considering how United should react after Sept. 11, Lubars took note of the large volume of communications expressing profound regret and deepest sympathies from companies that really weren’t directly involved. "United was at the center of it," he notes—two of the company’s planes were hijacked. "They couldn’t just put out a condolence. When we talked with them, they talked about how they felt and what they were thinking, what they thought about the country and future. We realized that the people who worked for United were the best people to talk about how they feel."
Because the spots were of unscripted United employees, Fallon called on acclaimed documentary director Errol Morris of bicoastal/ international @radical.media, who also helmed "Photo Booth."
"He had done some wonderful work for us," says Lubars. "He got them to feel comfortable expressing themselves. It was true, honest, heartfelt and sincere. I think people responded and felt empathy."
Production Values
Not taken for granted at Fallon is the production department. "In many an agency," says Mark Sitley, head of broadcast production for the Minneapolis and New York offices of Fallon, "the production department would be a group you would expect to just execute ideas. The model we use is that the production department is really the engine of the shop. We try to make the production department as proactive as it can be, in bringing all kinds of alternative media, music, or whatever kinds of outlets for creative consideration—even before we actually move into the creative on whatever account. This notion of being the thing that makes ideas very real empowers producers, assistants and everyone to feel they’re genuinely part of the strategic and creative process. That’s unique in my experience. It tends to keep everyone very prolific, and morale very high. Good energy makes great work."
Sitley, who has produced and directed commercials, says his producers play a key role in finding the right director for a spot. "In general," he adds, "the producers recommend to the creatives quite a number of ways—anywhere from twenty to thirty—to play out the sense of what the execution should be.
"The producers work with the creatives, looking at all the reels, and ultimately you go, more often than not, into the classic triple-bid situation," Sitley continues. "The bigger part of the process is working with the people who are being bid, whether it be directors or editors, as regards what their particular treatment of an idea is going to be. We rarely give people a storyboard so full that it doesn’t allow for an inordinate amount of input. That’s very healthy and engages them into what the strategic plan regarding that brand is, what the concept is. It’s out of that dialogue that the awarding [of the job] comes."
That kind of participation represents a work ethic that many Fallon executives say is part of the agency culture. "When we get shot down in meetings or if work doesn’t get sold, we go back and try and beat it," relates Bob Moore, creative director/copywriter. "There isn’t a whole lot of whining, or ‘woe is me,’ or self-pity. Our people say, ‘OK, if they don’t like that, we’ll come back with something better.’ And they always do. They just don’t give up here."
One of the goals of ongoing campaigns is to place certain concepts and ideas in the public discourse. "Both of the Holiday Inn campaigns are examples of us trying to create pop icons," Moore points out. "You saw both Bush and Gore during the campaign quoting the, ‘But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night,’ line. And ‘What do you think this is, a Holiday Inn?’ was used on SportsCenter the other night. We try to do things that get stuck in the culture so the client gets free advertising. There was a Monday Night Football game a little while ago—someone says, ‘I thought he was Buddy Lee tough; why is he going out of the game?’ It’s free exposure and promotion from people you respect."
Agency Network
Last year, Fallon agreed to be acquired by Paris-based ad giant Publicis Groupe, and officially changed its name from Fallon McElligott. Emotionally, it was a difficult decision, notes Pat Fallon. "From a business standpoint we had a global aspiration, but we didn’t believe we knew enough and we weren’t certain that it could be self-financed in our lifetime," he says. "We have clients like United and Citibank—big global brands—and we were afraid we might get lost at some point as the world consolidated. We thought we had a vision that could keep us differentiated and, more important than anything, allow us to have quality control. Now we have the best of both worlds. We think we can go on to see if our vision has legs around the world [with eight to ten offices]. At the same time, if we need a huge distribution system, we can call on our parent company to help us there."
Looking ahead, Fallon says the agency will be concentrating on growth, but not at the expense of its high standards. "It might sound very strange, but we never have had growth as our objective. We’ve always had quality as our objective, and growth has been a byproduct. We’re at the size now where we need to continue to grow to not get squeezed in the middle. We’re still going to be very selective, but we’re going to ask our people to be entrepreneurs and grow our business and grow the business units. We think we’ve provided them with the ammunition through lots of different things in our arsenal now. We think it’s time to bring those things together and orchestrate it and have some aggressive growth."
An aggressive growth strategy also sounds a little strange in the face of what Fallon recognizes is "the single worst business environment I’ve ever been involved in in thirty-two years"—a climate that forced Fallon to make the first layoffs in its history this year.
"The economic outlook is not good," Fallon observes. "We met with one of the economists of a client recently. They’re looking for a fourth quarter 2002 as the turnaround point, and I’m not even sure about that. But, yes, I’m asking for growth in this environment."
New clients would be part of the mix, of course, but Fallon also is looking to broader involvement with current clients. "We have a lot of clients that have multiple agencies," he says. Already this year, Fallon has added United Airlines global business, which had previously been handled by Young & Rubicam, New York, to the domestic account. "We have a lot of clients that are extremely happy with us," reports Fallon. "We’re going to be making sure, first and foremost, that our current client base is ecstatically happy, and then we have these business units set up that should generate additional revenues through São Pãulo, Singapore, Hong Kong, through Fallon Interactive, through Fallon Brand Consulting, through a number of different ways. We now have multiple revenue streams that we need to drive."
No other new overseas offices are planned before 2003, but Kevin Roddy, executive creative director of the New York office, believes that location has a key role to play in any growth strategy. "The world still sees New York as the center of the advertising universe," Roddy points out. "If you want to have a global network, it does make sense to have an office in New York. I’m hoping we get some more global accounts across the network. We’ll continue to pitch a lot of outside business." While Roddy predicts success for the New York office, it has suffered some setbacks, including the loss of $100 million in billings in the past two years, as well as a reduction in staff. Still, the Fallon network has high hopes for New York, and the office has recently won some accounts, including Timberland and SilverSea, a cruise line.
The key traits Fallon would like the agency to be recognized for are courage and integrity. "Obviously creativity is centered around the courage part," he explains. "Our clients hire us for the right reasons. Nobody accidentally hires this agency, because we’re very clear from the first meeting what we are and what we expect and how we work with our clients. We’re not for everyone and we’re not embarrassed if someone says, ‘Well, that might make sense for them, but that’s not how we want to work.’ We’re fine with that. The clarity of our kind of self-identity has been a strong business tool over the years."
