Interview with Preston Kelly Ad Agency Owner Chuck Kelly
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Preston Kelly Agency is an independent full-service agency focused on creating “iconic” ideas for the brands they work on. They are located in North East Minneapolis, Minnesota. I sat down with owner Chuck Kelly to ask him about running a business, future trends in advertising, and managing employees.
Did you know you wanted to go into advertising when you began your career?
I had no idea. I knew I liked communications but I had never been to an ad agency before grad school and knew very little about the industry. After graduating and looking for jobs I got an interview at an agency and thought I would give it a shot. I got the job, it was as a copywriter, and I learned a lot but I also learned that being a copywriter wouldn’t be the best use of my skill set and then I got into account management.
What has been one of the biggest challenges running the company?
A big challenge is never take anything for granted. Never assume anything is going to happen. Never assume anything about your clients. You have to work just as hard in your fifth year as you do on day one.
When you first joined the agency did you have any pre-conceived notions that proved wrong immediately?
I wasn’t a student of advertising. People today are much more serious about advertising and study it much more than I did when I started. One of the things I did learn early on, and its still true today, is pay attention to what is going on in the world. What are the current trends and what isn’t a trend anymore? Being aware of the world and culture. Something that was confirmed to me early on and it is still true today. There are so many changes in social marketing and sometimes the changes are overnight. So I didn’t have a lot of pre-conceived notions but something I came to like right away about advertising was that you could get things done fairly quickly, it made you think, you had the opportunity to work with smart people who confront problems in different ways. For example the way a media person looks at a problem is very different from where a planner or a pr person looks at it. There are many different perspectives and they are all smart ideas and you have to be brought together to make a great idea out of something. You’re never in a room with people that think exactly the same way and that, for me, is very stimulating. You never get into a habit of thinking a certain way. Most problems typically are different and you have to approach it differently. That also means not working with the same people on every project and you are exposed to many different perspectives that all help you get better solutions.
You mentioned not being a student of advertising. In today’s world many people believe you need a specific degree for a specific job. Looking at advertising today, how important do you think it is for someone to have a specific degree in advertising?
There are certainly benefits to having an advertising degree but having a psychology degree where you look at how the mind works and how people make decisions, those types of disciplines aren’t always emphasized in an advertising curriculum but are very important. Having an advertising degree is certainly important and has contributed to a lot of people’s success but I also think that the broader your education, oftentimes, the better off you are.
So having a degree of some kind is important?
I agree. I think you need to go through the formal education process. There is some maturation that occurs during the process and there are things you learn about people and the world and I think more times than not, nearly all times, there is value in the degree. That doesn’t mean it has to be in a very specific discipline but something that helps sharpen your critical thinking and forces you to learn. Learning is so important. In this business, you should be learning something everyday. Maybe it’s about a new product or something about a new clients business but you need to be learning everyday. When you start to do things because that’s how you did it in the past or because you have done it that way before then you become stagnant and you’ve lost your passion for the business and your passion for the business and soon you won’t have a job in the business.
What do you do to relive stress? How do you balance your work/life balance?
I find exercise is helpful on a nearly daily basis. It works for me physically and emotionally. There is a purging process that occurs so I think it is very important. Also, spending some time with people who are not in the business, maybe on the weekends, because it helps you get away from it sometimes. Otherwise it is very easy to spend all your time in the business. In my case, work/life balance is very important because my children are grown up so I no longer have the structure of raising children so it is easier to focus on business all the time. I also enjoy golf in the summer because it gets me outside and it can also be used as a business tool.
As the agency grows and you add more people, have you found it difficult to manage the culture? How do you make sure you preserve it?
It hasn’t been difficult because our people are the culture and we haven’t grown to the level where we have more new people than experienced people. Our culture is the product of everybody who is here. They like the culture and want to sustain it so I think as the more experienced people teach the newer ones we aren’t losing anything because the people who are here don’t want to lose it so they make sure to preserve it and help build it.
Do you have a vision of how you would like to see the agency a year from now? What about five or ten years from now?
Three to five years ago I would have said yes and here it is. That isn’t the case today. We are focused on growth still but agencies are evolving so fast with social and digital marketing. All I can say with certainty is it will be a much different agency in five years than it is today. We will be much more digitally and socially driven. Exactly how or where, I don’t know because that world keeps redefining itself. Will we have an emphasis in it and will it be our primary way of communicating our client’s messages? Yes it will. So to do that it means we are hiring people that are digitally savvy but still strategic. The thing that isn’t changing, the core of our business, is ideas. That continues to be what we do. How we express them is changing really fast. We will focus on iconic ideas but we will express them differently than we have in the past and we will grow our digital competencies to ensure that we are on the forefront of how best to do that.
Will there always be a place for traditional media? Will Billboards and TV commercials disappear?
No. People watch more TV now than they ever have. But if you listen to people in certain circles TV is dead. People will continue to listen to the radio in their cars.
Facebook and Twitter aren’t going to replace TV and become the end all be all?
No. They traditional methods aren’t going to go away, they might become more splintered, but they will be enhanced by other mediums.
Why do clients choose Kelly Preston?
They don’t believe their brand has any distinction in the marketplace. There is nothing that stands out with consumers. They know they need that to be successful, they’re frustrated with not having it in the past, and most likely, their business is changing and one thing they need to do is have an identity and they will say I need to have an iconic idea. An iconic idea creates a brand, which is a business tool, which is hard to compete without it in most markets.
So something needs to be done to make a distinction between all the similar products in the market place. I think about cereal or soap and they are all basically the same. Why do you think most companies struggle with brand identity?
I think in many instances, the product comes before the need is defined. Products are often brought to the market based on manufacturing capabilities versus market demand. I’m generalizing here, but large companies will rigorously research market demand before they launch a new product, but it is very difficult without being innovative, without having iconic ideas it’s really hard to distinguish a brand from all the advertising you are exposed to everyday. What makes you really listen to the message? It has to be interesting. It has to be told in an interesting way. However oftentimes, to make something interesting, people don’t have the patience or don’t want to risk really innovating.
I think about a company like Apple, which is really good at marketing its products because it takes risks quite a bit with bold leaps and creates new markets it can dominate or redefines existing markets. Speaking of risk, so many companies seek to reduce risk as much as possible. How do you approach risk taking?
We understand that there is some risk we take with some of our ideas we bring to our clients but we don’t ever think risk is something that will bankrupt the brand or the business. It is the type of risk where the downside is maintaining the status quo and the upside is huge potential for market dominance. Some ideas are too risky for some clients so you always want to have another option that is a bit safer. It is still a good idea but it might not have the potential to really elevate the brand to the top of the market. Providing multiple options, the client will have greater confidence that we have thought it through, given alternatives, but they see, with their own eyes, here is one that has potential and here is one that has even greater potential. A client has to see more than one idea, typically, to have confidence in that idea.
Is selling an idea to your clients a big part of your job? Some of your clients are large, traditional companies not known for pushing the envelope with their advertising. Is it difficult to persuade them the see the vision you have for their brand?
Clients change quickly. The chief marketing officers change quickly. There is a saying that says you don’t sell advertising, it is bought. The high turnover rate shows what little regard there is for marketing from the perspective of the board and CEO.
What do you look for in potential employees? Are there any similar characteristics that stick out?
People that we want to work with are curious, intelligent, not satisfied where they are, they want to learn, collaborators, believe in iconic ideas, and they are also the kind of people you would have a beer with. They’re driven, but not consumed so there is balance in their lives. We also look at their breadth and passion for conveying an idea in many different ways. We want people who can convey information in many different ways.
If you won the lottery how would you do with your time? Would you still work?
Money is a small thing in certain ways because if you’ve had a life where you’ve been engaged and thinking, you’ve been around stimulating people, to think that money will replace some of the most valuable things in your life, the exchange when interacting with smart people, it would have to be used in a way to improve the world we live in. To do that would involve collaborating with a lot of people. Giving back in someway to benefit people. To go live on a yacht and check your portfolio everyday seems like a dull existence. There is something that keeps me in this environment as long as it has. In this business you live by your wits. There isn’t a lot of technology that you can use as a crutch. Its hard to leave that because its part of your life.
As a business owner, what advice would you give to someone starting a company?
You must have a lot of stamina. You can have a solid business plan, very clear strategy and have everything in place but the intangible is the stamina and the commitment for making it happen. The will to succeed is the most important thing and the only important thing to move a business forward and without that will and without that drive, all the plans and capital isn’t going to be utilized without the will.
What do you do when you can’t act? How do you motivate yourself even when it feels like nothing has gone right?
The belief in the organization is huge for me. Having a good partner is really important to bounce ideas off and think things through with and challenge one another but also be there for each other for support.
How important has it been that you and your partner have matching attributes?
You need to think about other perspectives so having other people who challenge you is really important. But those people also have to have similar values. That way you can have healthy debate where you get a better outcome.
What skill would you like to improve upon right now?
Networking. It’s critically important in this business but it’s something I could always be better at.
Thank you very much.
My pleasure.
For more information about Preston Kelly check out their website here: http://www.prestonkelly.com/
