Occasionally, David beats Goliath to a pulp and comes away with a huge account. We’re always curious about how that smaller shop is going to handle the work (creative, client management, even the cost of flying to meetings), once they have grabbed ahold of a lion. Consider the recent win by VitroRobertson of IHOP’s creative work right out from under McCann’s inert feet. The account is valued is estimated at $80M. McCann Universal managed to hold onto media duties. Nice work, Vitro. Nice.
VR has two offices – Atlanta and San Diego with 80 staffers. McCann is in 130 countries and we can’t even guess how many bodies are on the payroll. However, IHOP said in AdWeek that it was the strength of the smaller agencies creative that got their attention. Come on, VitroRobertson is nothing to sneeze out. They’ve got a beautiful 15,000-square foot office in San Diego that highlight some of the work for clients such as Asics Corp., Cobra Golf, Yamaha Water Craft, Newcastle Brown Ale, Taylor Guitars, and Kyocera Wireless Corp.
We wondered if the agency was staffing up. Tom Sullivan, President of VR (pictured right), was nice enough to give us a heads up:
“We’re staffing up, indeed. I don’t necessarily feel like we’re David to McCann’s Goliath. We’re more like Peter Pan. But, I see where you’re coming from. My take is this…our team is a gang of thieves. We’re always thinking about strategies to steal share. We listen. We plan. We Steal. IHOP dug the plan and the creative. We’ve added some staff in LA and SD…and we’re looking at people in Atlanta.
We consistently and quickly contribute to the growth of a company’s business within a competitive context. Every agency-of-record client of the agency in our entire 15 years has experienced market share growth within 12 months of working with us – some realized growth despite prior years of steady share decline, declines in overall category sales and/or aggressive new competitors.”
Sullivan even provided us with a list of those companies that have enjoyed such increased market share growth:
– Yamaha WaterCraft (Doubled market share in declining category.)
– Baskin-Robbins (Reversed 10-year share decline in one year.)
– Cobra Golf (More than doubled share of metal driver market in one season.)
– ASICS athletic shoes (Tripled running shoe market share.)
– Taylor Guitars (From small custom manufacturer to number one premium guitar manufacturer in the U.S.)
We wish David, um Peter good luck and if you’re looking for a gig in one of these cities, VitroRobertson sounds like a darn good bet.