In March, Pat Fallon, founder and chairman of the legendary Minneapolis ad agency that bears his name, was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame.
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Diaspora: dispersion, from the Greek verb meaning scattering and sowing seeds. The phrase “Fallon Diaspora” comes courtesy of Adrian Ho, former Fallon creative director and cofounder of “Fallon alumni” firm Zeus Jones. |
But his legacy is more than his agency. Though Minneapolis was already home to nationally known ad shops, notably Campbell Mithun and Carmichael Lynch, just about everyone credits Fallon for making Minnesota one of the centers of marketing creativity nationally and even internationally. And in the past half-decade, former Fallon creatives and executives have founded Minneapolis-based marketing businesses that, directly and indirectly, have perpetuated the Fallon legend.
But not by following the Fallon model. Not exactly.
“The last thing we wanted to be known as was a mini-Fallon, although two of the three partners were from Fallon,” says Bob Barrie, a former Fallon art director and creative group head who cofounded Barrie D’Rozario Murphy (BDM) in 2007. “We certainly wanted to take much of what we learned at Fallon, but do things our own way as well.”
BDM is cool with the term “agency” to describe itself—it’s the only one of the four firms discussed here that has taken the old-school route of naming the business after its partners. Other Fallon alumni shops steer clear of the A-word, a term that to them suggests a mere gun for hire. Instead, they want clients to see them as big-picture partners that don’t push products and messages as much as help create a unified, attractively designed, and engaging interface with customers, off line and (increasingly) on line, in ways consistent with their brand image. (In fairness, BDM also sees itself as a strategist for many clients.)
These firms’ operations reflect their brands. Each has built a lean, nonhierarchical structure that emphasizes collaboration with employees and with clients. They realize that marketing budgets have to do more with fewer resources. Lower overhead and nimbler turnaround are two aspects of the new normal.
Still, each of these start-ups follows Fallon in at least two respects: a taste for unconventional approaches to making marketing messages, and a concomitant derring-do. “Pat Fallon created an environment where people with an entrepreneurial mindset loved coming in and were inspired,” says Rob White, who cofounded Zeus Jones with three other former Fallonites in 2007. “And I think that’s why you’re seeing the fruits of that.”
