Six of Manhattan's most experienced boutique PR firms invested hundreds of hours preparing elaborate proposals for the nearly half-million-dollar Cayman Island travel account. Employee-owned Patrice Tanaka & Co. (PT & Co.) eventually prevailed, a few weeks ago, in what one analyst calls "a long, exciting, but very fair, horse race."
The win came as a major disappointment to Spring, O'Brien & Co.; Evins Communications; KWE & Associates; Development Counselors International; and incumbent Aaron D. Cushman & Associates, which recently lost the Singapore account to Spring, O'Brien.
All review participants were made privy to a great deal of confidential information shared with the gencies by the Cayman Islands government representatives. As a result, each agency's proposal was based on a very thorough understanding of client objectives. Terms of the one-year agreement call for PT & Co. to promote the Cayman Islands as a travel destination.
Price was apparently not a section factor; style, strategy and implementation were. And although the detailed bid process was unusually bureaucratic --the Cayman Island requires that strict procedural rules be adhered to -- the agency that won the coveted account couldn't be less so.
What gave PT & Co. the crucial edge over its competitors?
Widely considered one of the hottest creative shops in the country, PT & Co. packages its talent as carefully as a fragrance manufacturer, from it colorful loft-like Greenwich Village-area offices to its supportive employee benefits package, which includes flex time, paid personal days, paid maternity and paternity leaves and other lifestyle-friendly provisions. There's even an employee "living room," stocked with current periodicals, and an ecumenical meditation sanctuary, where staff can retreat to peace and quiet as a means of gaining clarity. Such amenities have permitted PT& Co. to recruit and retain top people.
"You don't hire an agency for its offices, but I think in this case, the creative energy of PT & Co.'s space really appealed to the client on a number of levels," observes consultant Madigan Pratt. The Cayman Islands hired his firm, Madigan Pratt & Associates, a Darien, Conn.-based marcom firm, to guide the agency selection process.
Personal chemistry also played a major roll. Curiously, the Cayman Islands representatives requested that Lori Tucker, of PT & Co.'s Dallas office serve as lead contact on the account. Tucker is an avid scuba driver who has frequently vacationed in the Cayman Islands. She used to work in the New York office; however, when marriage beckoned Tucker to Dallas, the agency allowed her to open a branch office rather than lose to love a valued team member. Keeping Tucker has now paid big unforeseen dividends.
"They just really took to Lori, and because we're very connected as a company, there's no problem with running such a large account out of a satellite office, although we'll handing some of the national media from New York," says John Frazier, PT & Co.'s executive vice president and chief operations officer, who also oversees all travel industry accounts. "We're just very flexible as an organization, and I think that clearly translates into client responsiveness," adds Frazier, a PT & Co. partner.
Decidedly untraditional in its management approach, PT & Co. subscribes to the notion that an organization, like a person, has a "soul," that is, the collective synergy of its employees.
PT & Co.'s reputation and attitude led Microsoft [MSFT] to select the agency over several larger firms to partner with the software company's longtime technology agency Waggener Edstrom on the consumer launch of Windows '95.
Other travel clients include Cancun (Mexico) Trust, State of Connecticut Tourism Division, New York Cruise Lines and several Wyndham resorts [WYN]. The agency is also a leader in cause-related marketing, most notably, the Avon Breast Cancer Awareness Crusade.
PT & Co. was created in July 1990 when Honolulu-born Patrice Tanaka led a management buyback of what was then known as Jessica Dee Communications from parent company Chiat/Day Advertising. Troubles at Chiat/Day prompted Tanaka and other key executives at Jessica Dee --including Frazier --to take aggressive action before the public relations subsidiary was shot down or sold off. Six months later, the recession kicked in, and the fledgling independent agency lost half of its billings. However, instead of laying off half the staff, everyone took an interim pay cut, and billings were rebuilt in 12 months.
Over the past six years, PT & Co. has grown nearly 600 percent (earning $3.4 million in fees in 1995), in large part due to its progressive workplace initiatives "We don't want our employees to have to make the dreaded 'Sophie's Choice' between personal and professional obligations," Tanaka has said. (PT & CO., 212/229-0500; Madigan Pratt, 203/656-4560)