If you haven’t visited the creative-advertising hamlet of Minneapolis in recent years, you might not recognize it. The powerhouses Fallon, Martin Williams, Campbell Mithun and Carmichael Lynch are still there, but some are dramatically smaller. Boutiques run by their former executives now work on brands such as Apple, Nordstrom, General Mills and Target. The city’s largest agency works primarily outside of traditional media, skipping TV altogether. And a handful of younger shops with names such as Periscope and Olson that combine digital specialties with quirky offerings in design, packaging and even “social anthropology” are on the verge of lapping long-established, holding-company-backed agency brands in revenue. “If it isn’t completely reordered, it’s close…” via Ad Age
Minneapolis Ad Industry v 2.0
Jun 30 2009 — 1:34pm
3 Reader Comments
1:51 pm
a lot of meantions of “social” and “digital” in that article.
Still think its funny that a 130 person shop is thought of as a boutique…I hope a good portion of those 130 are contractors?
6:44 pm
I suppose size is all relative, ryanol. The contemporary large agencies have tens of thousands of employees worldwide.
8:04 pm
This article should really be about how various firms about town are becoming increasingly specialized. That’d be a better article and could cover way more firms, like the should have. As the comments pointed out, they forgot a lot of good firms (and many not mentioned in the comments).