Celebrating 20 years of
Person-to-Person^sm marketing

It’s been 20 years since Christine Pratt started her own marketing agency, and in that time she and her team have “spoken” personally to tens of millions of people, one consumer at a time.

This doesn’t mean that Pratt Marketing Group (PMG) employees are walking door-to-door to spread their clients’ messages. Rather, they take a unique approach to how they strategize and create their marketing initiatives. Whereas some firms specialize in “business-to-business” communications, or “business-to-consumer”, CEO Christine Pratt has always believed that marketing is ultimately a “person-to-person” experience.

“At PMG, we make a very important distinction in how we approach marketing communications,” said Pratt. “We recognize that every marketing effort—from a letter to a CEO to a billboard above an expressway—is really a thoughtful and respectful conversation with an individual. Every successful campaign begins there.”

Marketing to the mind.

This idea of individuality is the cornerstone of PMG’s Person-to-Person^sm approach to marketing, which has forged a unique and lasting identity for PMG over the course of 20 years. And that approach has picked up even more strength recently, now that PMG is applying the principles of Neuromarketing to its strategic and creative process. It’s an emerging field that combines neuroscience with the art of marketing to get at the innermost impulses that guide peoples’ minds in making decisions.

PMG is the only agency in the region using these Neuromarketing principles, and has found that it has truly made a science out of Person-to-Person marketing. The agency’s clients are experiencing unprecedented lifts in results (in some cases, up to 153% lifts in response) since implementing this new thought process.

Company culture, rooted in relationships.

But there is also a distinctive relationship side to the approach, as well. “Our Person-to-Person approach starts with how we treat each other here in the office, extends to our interaction with clients, and in turn with our clients’ clients,” said Pratt. “Some of our clients have been surprised that my main goal for PMG isn’t growth. But when they experience the personalized service and flexibility that we’re able to offer, they understand.”

Most days, the comfortable and bright River North offices of Pratt Marketing Group are bustling with activity. Still, Jerry Valentine (Vice President and Creative Director, who has been with PMG since its founding) describes the atmosphere as “calming and in control… not the frantic, adrenaline-hyped pace you see at some agencies. “Our clients always tell us how much they love our atmosphere and space.”

The cure for the common agency.

PMG was formed in the late Eighties, a time when mergers and acquisitions in the advertising industry were a daily source of news. In fact, Pratt’s previous firm was gobbled up and overnight everything changed.

“Suddenly there was a big agency feel. Smaller clients were being ignored or eliminated in favor of accounts that were billing $30 million-plus. I knew right away that this was not the environment I wanted to work in, and this was not the work that would fulfill me.”

Pratt also noticed that the large agency bureaucracy was affecting the quality of their marketing messages. “Sometimes it felt like the audience was treated like an afterthought. Their concerns, motivations and feelings were often reduced to simple charts and graphs or what kind of creative would win awards. The human, connecting, side of marketing was being lost.”

It didn’t occur to Pratt to simply move to another agency (she figured she’d be similarly disappointed again.) Instead, she took the change as an omen to strike out on her own. She rented a loft space in Cobbler’s Square and started doing business.

Four office spaces, 18 employees and 20 years later, PMG has a solid client base that includes Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Credit Corporation, Discover Card, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Silver Cross Hospital, and Power Wellness.

Unlike many agencies, which tend to take on more than they can handle, hire more employees and then let them go when business slows down, Pratt has kept PMG growing at a steady pace. “I’ve always thought that swelling and shrinking staff with the flow of business is really uncivilized. I’ll add a person only if I’m confident we can continue to operate at a higher capacity.”

Moving into a bright future.

Over the past 20 years, the field of marketing has also changed dramatically. From specking type and releasing projects on boards, to much more sophisticated options in the areas of technology, interactive, new media and research, it is critical that an agency be able to deliver work and strategy at a whole new level. Recent research among high level marketers revealed clients don’t expect any agency to be able to do it all in house. But they appreciate having their agency serve as “general contractor,” to help them oversee the many moving parts of their marketing needs.

As a result PMG, has spent considerable time searching for a community of broadened expertise—Strategic Partners who are at the top of their fields—to provide added value for our clients.

And now that PMG has reached a 20-year milestone, what about the next 20 years? Pratt doesn’t have any numbers in mind. “I want to continue to grow within the same parameters: measured, strategic growth for our clients. Qualitative, meaningful growth for our employees.”