Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401260404
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: EC-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In a time when advertising agencies are shattering into fragments of free-lancers, Poindexter/Bolt is bucking the trend.
The business, formed July 19, was the result when two of Roanoke's oldest and best-known advertising agencies merged.
But don't look for any trend of ad agency mergers. "I doubt it," said Rod Carter.
In the advertising business, he said, mergers "rarely succeed - or even reach consummation."
That mergers break down even before they happen usually is a matter of personalities, he said.
Poindexter/Bolt got off the ground because the two agencies complemented each other so well, Carter said.
Poindexter Associates Advertising enjoyed a lot of strength in handling consumer products and in creating mass media commercials.
But Poindexter wanted to grow, said Carter. It needed to expand its staff and resources to penetrate the industrial arena.
Bolt Inc., on the other hand, was strong in the industrial and business-to-business market. It wanted to enter the consumer and mass media business.
Their combined list includes some 50 clients, although 80 percent of the agency's billings come from its top 10 accounts. Carter called that ratio "usual and desirable."
To their marriage, Poindexter contributed such clients as the Arby's fast-food franchises in Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia Gentlemen of Olds and Country Cookin' restaurants.
Bolt brought ABB Process Analytics of Lewisburg, a maker of process instruments; NSW Corp. of Roanoke, a plastics extruder; and Meridium Corp. of Roanoke, a software developer for industrial and process applications.
Since the merger in July, Carter said, the dollar amount of their billings have increased by 40 percent over first-year projections.
Those projections had been based on the recent histories of the agencies and an analysis of their accounts.
The new agency, he said, "hit the ground running." Carter said the principals have been too busy even to produce a newsletter for clients.
Chairman of the agency is Dale Poindexter, the only person left from Poindexter Associates.
The others, all from Bolt, are Pete Ostaseski, president; Carter, executive vice president; and Tom Kegley, vice president and creative director.
Their only employee is Becky Farmer, the office manager.
"We all kind of watch after the door and the phones," Carter said. The receptionist's desk is empty.
Carter said the arrangement is "typical of a lot of small businesses today. We do our own work."
Because every person has a word processor for copywriting, they simply print their own letters in final form. It's easier to print material, he said, than it is to explain to someone else what is needed.
The office above the First Union National Bank branch on McClanahan Street once belonged to Poindexter.
Originally they planned to use the old Bolt quarters, he said, but the Poindexter premises were better-equipped.
Carter said all of the principals hold their creative meetings as a team. Each person has a hand in designing a concept for a client.
Kegley does most of the art and design as creative director. Ostaseski and Poindexter bring broad experience in broadcast production. Carter, like the others, is a copywriter and handles public relations.
Each takes responsibility for handling client accounts because the agency has no account executives as such.
Now that the lawyers have finished and the merger is complete, the next goals are to continue to improve products and services while acquiring more and more client accounts. "You go forward or you go backward," Carter said.
Carter is confident of success because Poindexter/Bolt applies "good solid business fundamentals" to the agency.
"It used to be a business peopled by mystics," Carter said. Advertising agencies didn't manage their products and money. "You can't do that any more."
As recently as 1980, according to Carter, a typical agency would have had 12 people handling today's volume for Poindexter/Bolt.
Now they are adding clients and billing without adding staff. "That's the kind of thinking you have to have today," Carter said.
The principals of Poindexter/Bolt "always know where we're at," Carter said.
They apply business fundamentals such as accounting and cost analysis "with discipline" to the agency's business, Carter said.
Clients are interested in creative talent and concepts, he said, but they also want an agency that controls its costs with realistic business analysis.
\ POINDEXTER/ BOLT\ A FRESH START\ \ The company: Poindexter/Bolt was created July 19 through merger of Poindexter Associates Advertising and Bolt Inc., two of Roanoke's oldest advertising agencies.
\ Headquarters: 301-B McClanahan St. S.W., Roanoke.
\ Roanoke Valley operations: Poindexter/ Bolt offers a full line of advertising and marketing services for mass media, industrial and business-to-business clients. It has about 50 clients in the region.
by CNB