Advertising agencies do creative work. They are staffed with “creatives.” And the lobby of Fallon’s downtown Minneapolis office is designed to leave no doubt that one has entered a creative environment.
The legendary ad shop originally known as Fallon McElligott Rice returned to the AT&T Building at Ninth and Marquette in 2008, after expanding into bigger quarters downtown in 2001. A smaller Fallon now occupies three floors that were redesigned to striking effect: a reception area floored in what seems like an acre of hickory—unexpected underfoot in a modern office tower; lobby sofas and chairs in red and orange paisleys; a cube-like fireplace; a coffee bar; and those retro, Empire State Building–style viewing scopes for visitors inclined to investigate the sights visible to the north through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Not a bad place to come to work everyday, observes Fallon CEO Chris Foster. Lately, coming to work has been a more cheerful experience.
When Foster arrived in March 2008, his job was not so much to assume the throne at a firm long regarded as one of the most creative in its field as to stop the bleeding and restore faded luster.
Since losing BMW in 2005, one of the agency’s top priorities has been to land another automobile account. Now, at last, Fallon has a car.
Foster and others have been virtually certain since October that Fallon would become the lead agency of record for the Chrysler Group’s namesake brand. The official announcement didn’t come until December, but activity behind the scenes was furious through the autumn months.
“When you’re transitioning a piece of business on this scale,” says Fallon’s chief marketing officer Rob Buchner, “there are a lot of moving parts.” Once the news was public, the agency began recruiting openly for roughly 30 new positions. Pre-Chrysler, Fallon employed just under 200 in Minneapolis and just under 500 globally. Fallon has offices in Minneapolis, London, and Tokyo.
Buchner says the new account might be the largest ever brought into the Twin Cities. Even after a steep drop in 2009 car sales and ad budgets, Chrysler is expected to spend well over $200 million on advertising in 2010. (That includes not only fees to Fallon, but the cost of air time for television ads and other expenses.) Fallon built former client CitiBank into a $400 million account, Buchner says, “but when we took over in 1999, it was a fraction of that.” Chrysler’s ad spending has reached $500 million, in years past, suggesting potential for growth if the brand recovers.
Billings from Chrysler will boost Fallon’s revenues by 25 or 30 percent, Foster says. He doesn’t disclose what 2009 revenues were.
