‘A Telling Milestone!’

By Larry Coffman

In case you haven’t noticed, for the first time in the long history of the Puget Sound Business Journal’s annual Book of Lists, there were no listing pages for Advertising Agencies and Public Relations Firms in the 2021 edition.

It was a telling milestone!

But it shouldn’t have been a surprise, given the shrinkage and splintering of the Seattle marketing communications (marcomm) community in recent years. The warning came in last year’s Book, when the Advertising and PR lists had shrunk to 18 and 17 listees, respectively, despite the norm being a minimum of 25 listees in each category.

The top Advertising Agency was CMD Seattle, whose headquarters are in Portland.  GreenRubino and JayRay appeared on both lists, an indication of the disappearing distinction among those in the Ad/PR/Design business. In fact, the page for Graphic-Design Firms has been absent in the Book for the last several years, given the growing lack of distinction among the three creative categories.

It’s worth noting that there’s also no page for Commercial Printers, long the bedrock of the marcomm community (and the Book) but a category that has steadily shrunk in numbers, due to consolidations and closures.

In case you wondered, the 2021 Book is as robust as ever, despite the pandemic, matching the 224 pages in the previous pandemic-free edition. It’s filled with ads for the business community “haves,” —i.e., those in the real estate, healthcare, legal, financial and tech sectors.

This all tells the marcomm community—loud and clear—that we’re among the “have nots.” And, indeed, we do not have:

• The number of high-profile advertising agencies of years past, like the venerable Cole & Weber, which was quietly folded into the already amalgamated WundermanThompson agency early last year;

• Consequential and colorful personalities in the Ad/PR/Design fields, like the late Hal Newsom and Jay Rockey and Dave Marriott and David Strong, and advertising aces like the now-retired Steve Darland, Mike Mogelgaard, Rick Stanton, Ron Elgin and Jim Copacino;

• Much interest in awards, which help distinguish the leaders and raise awareness of the marcomm community, because awards prep has become a much lower priority when agencies are just trying to survive;

• As many corporate clients because the CMOs have increasingly built their own in-house creative staffs; and

• The same relationship with the TV and radio stations, as in the past. The TV stations, in particular, have seen an opportunity in the pandemic to go direct to clients and prep the ads themselves, rather than go through their previous agency creative partners (e.g., marketing@king5.com and marketing@komonews.com).

Clearly, the marcomm community we built over the past three decades has changed. It’s time now to explore how best adapt in the digital era that has surpassed the traditional era of our halcyon years.