Tocquigny Looks Beyond Texas, High-Tech Arena

Seeking greater stability in a high-tech neighborhood, Tocquigny Advertising, Interactive + Marketing has tightened its financial controls and broadened its new-business approach, moves that have proved timely after the shop lost a piece of its cornerstone Dell Computer business.The Austin, Texas, shop has shuffled its executive ranks, laid off 20 staffers and shifted its hiring toward more senior execs in a bid to fend off competitors such as T3 (The Think Tank) in Austin, which last month grabbed Dell's b-to-b direct-mail business from under Tocquigny's nose. Dell had accounted for almost 20 percent of the shop's estimated $50 million in billings before the shift, which cost the shop about the same percentage of the client's total business.As part of an ongoing restructuring of her 24-year-old, full-service shop, founder and CEO Yvonne Tocquigny early this month surrendered her title of president to Valerie Hausladen, who was marketing director of Dell's public sector business before joining Tocquigny as a principal and vp for client services in 2001. The promotion is designed to allow both execs to spend more time on new business."One of the things you have to do to retain the best people is to create new opportunities," said Tocquigny. "There are a lot of opportunities in Austin if you want to focus on high-tech. But if you want to provide opportunities that are not in high-tech, you have to move outside this market."Tocquigny claimed the No. 20 slot on the 2003 Adweek Top 50 interactive list, the highest spot for any Texas firm. Tocquigny said the shop's experience with high-tech clients such as Dell has helped as the agency reaches beyond Texas for business.But the ups and downs of the tech industry led Tocquigny to decide the shop needed more senior execs who would increase the chances of landing national, non-tech clients. The shop's roster also includes Hewlett-Packard and AMD. In January, the agency picked up the heavy-equipment-procurement division of Caterpillar in Peoria, Ill., an account the agency estimated at nearly $1 million.Tocquigny also determined the shop had to increase operational efficiencies and more closely scrutinize elements such as cost-benefit ratios for adding new clients. To that end, Tocquigny in February recruited Pedro Laboy, formerly senior partner of finance at Grey Global Group's G2 Worldwide in New York, as CFO.The agency claimed billings growth of 50 percent per year over the last three years, but the business plan needed a tune-up. Laboy recommended slowing the new-business pace so the shop could maintain better control of its operations. "We don't want to triple in size, but we want to double in size in the next three or four years," he said.

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Tocquigny Looks Beyond Texas, High-Tech Arena

Richard Williamson

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Richard Williamson