Dancing raisins. Burping frogs. "Aflac"-quacking ducks. Sure, they turn heads and create a buzz on Madison Avenue, but when Kansas City-area companies scout for an agency to handle their advertising, they’re just as often looking for a firm that offers the right blend of chemistry and services.

Three advertising-savvy organizations in the area discuss what’s especially important to them.

Know Thy Client
At The Lodge of Four Seasons in the Ozarks, Maris Brenner says it’s vital that the lodge’s ad agency understand the hotel business. She wants to see the agency’s past successes—not showy awards, but real-world examples of how the ad firm helped clients boost occupancy rates.

For five years her resort has worked with Kupper Parker Communications, a St. Louis-based agency with branch offices in Kansas City and other cities. The St. Louis and Kansas City presence is important to Brenner: those are the two major target markets for the Ozarks resort.

"We need an agency that knows our industry and our terminology," says Brenner, the resort’s director of marketing and sales. The agency has to understand her lodge’s seasonal ups and downs as well be able to tailor its ads to different audiences—whether it’s a business meeting planner, golf tournament organizer or a husband-and-wife in need of a weekend getaway. "And," she says, "the agency must have a Midwest point of view."

Brenner also counts on the ad firm to be on the hunt for trade-out arrangements. In those soft-money deals, a radio station, for instance, will run a series of Four Seasons’ ads in exchange for lodging at the resort. The station in turn might use those as prizes for its customers. Brenner counts on her agency to help identify such deals.

The fact that Kupper Parker’s nearest account rep is several hours away in KC or St. Louis doesn’t bother her. "I used to believe that the closer an agency was to the (hotel) property, the better the relationship was. But that’s really changed over the past 10 years," Brenner says. "Thank goodness for e-mail. I’m looking at my e-mail right now, and seven of the messages are from our agency."

As content as she is with Kupper Parker, Brenner says companies should conduct an agency review every three or four years. During a review, a client typically asks its agency and several others to submit bids for the company’s ad business. The regular reviews keep the client’s agency on its toes and ensure pricing is fair.

Likewise, it’s smart not to stay with one agency too long. "It’s important we’re up-to-date with fresh ideas," Brenner say. "Familiarity can get you comfortable, but you have to challenge your agency to stay creative."

Relationships Matter
Sometimes, companies choose an ad agency based more on pure chemistry. Bob Sullivan, vice president of sales and marketing at Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City, says the KC brewer’s ad budget isn’t large, but he discovered long ago that his company represents a sexy catch to local agencies. Maybe it has something to do with beer.

"We’ve been solicited by every agency in the city and gone through all the dog-and-pony shows," he concedes. "But that’s not what we’re about."

Many of the agencies didn’t do their homework. Sullivan recalls getting pitched by eager salespeople who knew little of his constraints. Some of their advertising ideas, he told them flatly, were in violation of alcohol-marketing laws.

On the other hand, local agencies that do advertising for other beer-makers turned him off with their prescription approach. "Agencies that have worked with the mega-brands like Corona and Bud think that what’s been successful for those clients will work for us," Sullivan says. "But those brewers are so much larger than us."

Despite all the attention from local ad firms, Boulevard Brewing has relied on in-house artists for its advertising—until about a year ago. That’s when Sullivan met with representatives from a small KC firm, CHRW Advertising. Over dinner they discussed Boulevard’s 100-page marketing plan, which lays out the beer-maker’s marketing position and image. And Sullivan noticed something in CHRW that he hadn’t seen before: a genuine understanding of the brewer’s subdued marketing spirit.

"They really got us," he says. "A lot of agencies say they get you, but they don’t. These guys got us. We were looking for someone that could crawl inside and learn us. A lot of agencies can’t do that. We wanted someone who would think like us but not give us what we could do on our own."

The agency’s main ad work for Boulevard so far has been focused on area radio; the brewer still uses in-house for its print and outdoor campaign. It helped that CHRW’s owners—all of whom had split off from one of KC’s largest agencies—fit the 21- to 28-year-old demographics that Boulevard targets. That age group is about 20 years Sullivan’s junior, so he’s glad CHRW people are more in tune with the younger crowd.

Quality Counts
When the Kansas Lottery was searching for full-service ad agencies early this year, the Topeka-based organization gave the small handful of firms that were bidding on its business the same assignment: Here’s the product, now go develop some creative ad themes.

The winner was Barkley Evergreen & Partners, one of KC’s largest agencies. It helped that the firm had worked with the Kansas Lottery business before, as well as the Missouri Lottery. Much of the same Barkley Evergreen team was still together to serve the Kansas business, too. And its prices were right. But what really sold the eight-person Kansas Lottery committee on the Barkley Evergreen presentation was their imagination.

"The creative was outstanding," says Colleen O’Neil, Kansas Lottery marketing director. "They obviously did their research." (Don’t look for her to tip her hand here on the new theme, however; it’s under wraps until early in 2003.

While Barkley Evergreen handles both Kansas and Missouri lottery ad business, O’Neil notes that the agency has separate teams devoted to the accounts. That’s important to her. "We think there might be some competition between them. That will make them work harder."

Surprisingly, location isn’t important to her. Even though the lottery is a state agency, O’Neil says she isn’t pressured to use an agency in Kansas. In fact, she’s been pitched by firms in Colorado and Minnesota, as well as Missouri. "We’re very open" to an agency’s location.

"It could be a national firm if we felt it was the right one."Such scenarios ring true with KC-area ad leaders. They say criteria like relationships and creative quality typically are at the top of the list, but a host of other factors go into their clients’ decision-making process.

"Clients are looking for a true partner, not someone just to take orders," says Neil Getzlow, spokesperson at Sullivan, Higdon & Sink, a KC agency whose mantra is, "We Hate Sheep." "One of our clients will e-mail us with an idea and say, ‘Argue with me about this!’ He likes to challenge us."

Sometimes pure enthusiasm wins out. Getzlow says his agency in May landed the Captain D’s fast-food account—now one of its top-three clients—largely because the agency demonstrated its excitement and knowledge of the seafood chain.

The agency talked with employees and studied customers. "And we ate at a lot of Captain D’s," he says. "We put our heart and soul into the pitch. They could see our passion.".