The Rockies have always been a fence that keeps west and east minding their own business. So it’s only natural that Vancouver agencies experiencing tough times would look south for solace.

With major U.S. markets just over the border in California and Washington State – sharing the same time zone, populated by consumers with the same attitudes who commiserate over the same rain – it’s little wonder that Van’s own have found southern success by offering U.S. clients more for their money.

A decade of downsizing and consolidation has made an impression on Vancouver. In what has traditionally been a self-contained market, moves like the 1998 BC Tel/Telus merger have cut rents in the advertising fabric of the city, and two years after the NDP/Liberal flip, uncertainty still lingers over one of the largest advertisers in the province, the B.C. government itself. Naturally, local agencies have not escaped the tumult.

Virginia Greene, president of Go Direct Marketing (acquired by Chicago’s J. Walter Thompson over two years ago), estimates that Van’s advertising business has shrunk by half in the last decade. The scope of the losses was made especially evident last year when, from the heights of its New York edifices, Omnicom decided three agencies were too many for one market and folded Lanyon Phillips Communications into its other two holdings, Palmer Jarvis DDB and Bryant Fulton & Shee. Most contacted by Strategy believe there are still too many players in the field and more might go.

But new MacLaren McCann GM Danielle Wilson chooses to see hard times in Van as a blessing in disguise. ‘It’s been a great thing for the agencies,’ she notes, ‘because in that down-time we’ve all developed our customer relationship management capabilities, our interactive and e-commerce capabilities [and other capacities]. I don’t know if we would have developed those skills if the client base didn’t drive it.

‘We’ve become more imaginative communicators. To me that’s certainly one of the appeals of the Vancouver marketplace versus some of the U.S. marketplaces. You have fewer dollars and fewer resources but you have the same marketing talent. So you need to be creative.’

It was for times like these

that the Germans coined the term Schadenfreude. If Vancouver got it bad, the west coast of the U.S. got it worse. Many agencies in the western U.S. were perched on the bubble with tech clients, and when times got tough, agency shrinkage saw creative talent leave for friendlier climes. That has led to an American need for lean, creative marketing operations – just the sort that have been incubating in Vancouver.

And in that vacuum several left-coast agencies have begun to find a niche south of the border.

One big happy family

Some of that southward expansion has certainly been spurred by U.S. affiliations. At the beginning of October for example, Van’s Go Direct along with the JWT mother ship in Chicago and its Minneapolis digital division pitched and won work from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Greene expects most of the work will be done north of the 49th.

Although Tom Ridge has not commented on what he thinks of foreigners doing his marketing, Greene says Go has found a receptive audience south of the border. ‘In the U.S.,’ she notes, ‘we find that clients are less concerned about where your centres of excellence are as they are about your excellence. So, assuming you can service their business and satisfy them that you have the bench strength to do so, where you do it is far less of a concern to them.’

JWT’s acquisitions of late have been tailored to create such centres of excellence, be it Go Direct in Vancouver or interactive agency Imaginet in Minneapolis. JWT pitches clients as a united front and then divides the work to whomever can do it best. ‘It becomes more complex on the delivery side,’ notes Greene, ‘so your processes have to be very sharp. We spent a lot of time and money trying to improve those because it is a bit tricky when you have people in two or three geographies working together on a client. But basically, we’ve perfected the design over the last few years to a point where we can sell it and deliver pretty easily.’

Go Direct links up with the JWT net for weekly business development and lead management meetings, and when work comes in, it makes sure it can offer clients more – Web sites, e-marketing, direct marketing, lead management, general advertising, or strategic planning models. As MacLaren McCann’s Wilson noted, being in Vancouver during the lean years has taught outfits like Go to offer clients more. ‘If you’re an advertising agency you tend to service the marketplace in which you reside,’ observes Greene. ‘I think it’s only if you begin to build in some of those other capabilities that you can reach out beyond that.’

Rethink president Chris Staples won’t argue. His 40-person agency launched into an already crowded Vancouver market four years ago, but it has thrived thanks to a holistic approach and an ability to find work outside the market.

Rethink picked up Toronto clients like A&P soon after its launch, but it struck gold in the U.S. with work from sources like Miller Lite, Caboodles Cosmetics and Sara Lee Foods (the latter thanks to a story the CBC’s Venture did on the agency). Earlier this year it won work from Farmer Jack, a 150-store Michigan-based grocery chain.

‘For Farmer Jack we didn’t just pitch ads,’ says Staples. ‘We showed them how to redesign their uniforms, how to change every sign in their stores, how to redesign their trucks, their letterhead, their flyers, how to train their staff, plus do their TV ads. It was a top-to-bottom approach. I think that this is the advantage that we have as a Vancouver agency. We have to do everything…And for the American clients, quite frankly, I don’t think that there are a lot of [agencies] that have that kind of leaning in the U.S.

‘It’s funny,’ he observes, ‘but I think a lot of Canadian companies are intimidated by the U.S. market and somehow think that we are not as good advertising people, or that somehow American clients are more aggressive and too demanding – that we wouldn’t measure up somehow. But our experience has been the opposite. I think Americans find us to be a real breath of fresh air.’

Rethink’s approach seems to be working. The agency experienced 45% revenue growth this year, with half of that coming from outside the Vancouver market.

Grey Worldwide Northwest president Tim Johnson thinks much of the cross-border mystique is in our heads. ‘We seek to create partnerships with our clients,’ he notes, ‘and American clients are as willing to create partnerships as Canadian clients are. I certainly don’t think Americans spend as much time thinking about Canada as a foreign influence as Canadians spend thinking about America being a foreign influence.’

Johnson should know. Two years ago his agency opened an ‘outpost’ in the Seattle headquarters of public affairs company and Grey affiliate APCO Worldwide in order to facilitate the work GWN was doing for that Yank brand-among-brands, Starbucks. GWN has been working with the coffee doyen for over eight years, but the move helped to facilitate the relationship and it allowed GWN to pitch for new work alongside APCO. With Seattle so close, Johnson no longer even sees the border. ‘We call ourselves Grey Worldwide Northwest because we truly see ourselves as a northwest agency,’ he says.

Vancouverites on Vancouver

Chris Staples, president, Rethink

‘You either look to the U.S. or you wither and die. Toronto agencies, in my opinion, spend far too much time looking at each other and looking in their own bath water. There is a big ocean of opportunity out there.

‘Vancouver has deliberately tried to raise its creative profile, and for the last several years it has been doing some of the best creative work in the country. I know that American advertising people are starting to equate Vancouver with other small centres in the U.S. that do great ads, like Portland or Minneapolis.’

Virginia Greene, president, Go Direct Marketing

‘So little comes up for review here – a BC Hydro review is the talk of the town – you want to keep your eyes and ears open. You want to know who is saying they are dissatisfied. But at the end of the day there isn’t a lot you can do to drum up business in Vancouver, [so you have to look elsewhere].’

Tim Johnson, president, Grey Worldwide Northwest

‘People enjoy living and working here, and they realize that there are as many opportunities outside of Vancouver for clients as there are inside…. I think the combination of this being an attractive place to live and the dynamic that encourages people to look outward will continue to produce people in the market who are very creative and innovative, and if you look at some of the agencies in Vancouver, there is obvious proof of that.’

Danielle Wilson, GM, MacLaren McCann

‘Vancouver used to be perceived as an advertising gulag. If you couldn’t make it in Toronto, you went to Vancouver. Or everyone in Vancouver was aspiring to go to Toronto. In the last six to eight years, that has really turned around.

‘If you’re dealing with a head office that’s in Vancouver, chances are the founder of the company is involved on a day-to-day basis or is at least involved from a consultative point of view. You really end up working with dynamic entrepreneurial visionaries.’