ADNEWS - ThomasArts Growth

June 7, 2007 - ThomasArts – Accelerated Growth Through Steadfast Performance and a Legacy of Trust

It’s an enviable position Dave Thomas finds himself in nowadays. His agency, ThomasArts, is just a youngster, having come into existence barely four years ago. But unlike most fledging operations, Dave isn’t out pounding the pavement pitching new clients as Dave has the good fortune to have clients seeking him out based on his impressive track record and an honorable 28-year reputation.

In 1982 he co-founded Thomas/Phillips/Clawson which was eventually bought out by Cole & Weber. Dave served as managing director at C&W for three years, then bought that office back and sold it to EvansGroup in 1989. He became president of EvansGroup Salt Lake, Los Angeles and Denver offices in 1992. When EvansGroup was bought by Publicis in 1998, Dave became president of the Salt Lake City office. Dave then ran for the first congressional district seat in 2002 and when he lost, went back to the ad game and in January 2003, he started ThomasArts.

ThomasArts has quietly become one of the largest agencies in Utah. This year, capitalized billings will run in the neighborhood of $45 million. The home office in Farmington, Utah employs more than 50 people, while another 15 or so man offices in Orange County, Calif. and Minneapolis, Minn.

Recently, the Thomas family bought the 25,000 square-foot building where ThomasArts was founded. This large space allows for expanded capabilities. “We are very broad, yet vertical,” says Dave. “Broad in the sense that we offer branding, research, direct marketing, public relations, Web development, but vertical in that we go very deep within those disciplines to provide production, post production, duplication, fulfillment—the list goes on and we can add to it, because in today’s environment you have to react fast. Anything that involves a client’s marketing and communication, we can do it,” he says. “You’d be amazed at what comes out of that building.” For instance, the agency creates and manages the production of more 10 million pieces of direct mail a month from their Farmington, Utah headquarters.

As elementary as it sounds, ThomasArts’ secret to success has been to focus on developing strategies that are perfectly in tune with a client’s principal objectives. “That for me was the ‘ah-ha’ moment 20 years ago. The work has to drive our client’s business model. The communication has to be tightly targeted to whom you want to communicate, on what level you want to communicate and what you actually want them to do from the communication. Once we understood that, we were off. And that’s when good creative comes into play. Unless you understand that whole model and start developing work that fits into that paradigm, you’re not going anywhere,” explains Dave.

“The work we do for Gus Paulos, which is a 26-year relationship, is arguably one of the best brands that’s ever been created in Utah. Obviously, I don’t take credit for all of that, there are dozens of people that touch that account,” Dave adds. The point is, while there’s a certain amount of science and math involved with any strategic process, it’s Dave’s opinion that executing successful strategies is much more of an ensemble art than most people would think.

“The work we do for Gus is very different than the work we do for, say, a company that specializes in Medicare. The target is different, the goals are obviously different and you have to know that the same approach isn’t going to work from one client to another,” explains Dave. Understanding this dynamic is a big part of what has driven his new agency’s growth. Clients seek ThomasArts out for this approach, and then stay because their business keeps growing. “What I found out many years ago, when we didn’t have this approach to our business, was that we were doing really edgy work, but our clients’ business was going down. We were spending a lot of their money doing things that weren’t working. The work has to meet their goals or they’re going to leave and go somewhere else. And our clients stay because we’re meeting their goals for growth,” Dave said.

Dave has established himself, and now ThomasArts, as one of the most knowledgeable and competent agencies in the country in the healthcare industry. Dave states that 15 cents of every dollar is spent on healthcare. And with the aging baby boom generation, the opportunities continue to flourish.

Dave cultivated his expertise in the health care niche at the outset of his career. Thomas/Phillips/Clawson won the FHP account in 1983. Over the course of the agency/client relationship, the value of FHP grew exponentially before FHP was purchased by Pacificare. When Dave moved to EvansGroup, his account team landed UnitedHealthcare and continued work on that account with Publicis until he left in 2002. In 2005, UnitedHealthcare sought out the expertise of ThomasArts to handle its Medicare business.

So, Dave recently signed SecureHorizons, part of a $72 billion, Fortune 25 company headquartered in Minneapolis. “They just called us up. I can’t tell you how gratifying that is to me,” says Dave.

ThomasArts’ believes that its success is about developing good interpersonal skills. It’s a major factor in productive personal and professional partnerships. “I think that’s a key that is often overlooked. People don’t want it to be hard or painful to do business. It always goes back to the basics—you want to get something out of it that’s rewarding. The interaction you have with people on a daily basis has to make the whole thing fun,” adds Dave.

The future looks like more growth. “We are opportunistic in our approach. We are looking for clients who want to drive their company forward on a national basis using the skill sets we have,” says Dave. ThomasArts is also interested in local business in Utah as well as retail and high tech opportunities to grow their Orange County operation.

Armed with an all-in-the-family creative trifecta in sons, Troy (creative director), Brett (design director) and Matt (multimedia director), Dave has fulfilled a life-long dream. “I’ve always wanted to work with my boys. We talked about it for years, but the timing wasn’t ever quite right. But after I lost (the congressional race), everything fell into place,” says Dave.

Each son works hard to make the business a stronger, more cohesive whole from the standpoint of their respective areas of expertise as well as using successful team-building techniques learned and practiced as a family. Among the first people to join ThomasArts, and now stockholders in the company, were Lisa Roberts and Anne Wood, bringing expertise in planning, media and account management.

Dave’s hiring practices follow the principles of a strong family. Considered first and foremost is the person’s character—his or her morals and ethics. Then, the level of talent and intelligence is considered.

One of the truly pleasant surprises Dave has encountered with this new venture has been the level of buy-in his employees exhibit toward the agency. “They really care about what we’re doing. They live and breathe it. If they think we’re doing the wrong thing or going in the wrong direction, they’re very passionate about what we need to change. There’s a real sense of ownership that I’ve never seen before,” Dave says.

“Somebody told me something a long time ago, and it’s been one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received: ‘You can go as far as you want, as long as you don’t care who gets the credit.’ I really believe that,” says Dave. That mantra clearly drives the day-to-day attitude at ThomasArts. Top to bottom, no staff member is focused on who’s getting the top billing. Everyone is working too hard for the benefit of the entire agency to dally in ego stroking. Dave’s staff variously describes the atmosphere at ThomasArts as either ‘laid-back intensity’ or ‘relaxed chaos.’ Either way it’s obviously an ethos that’s taken hold and been a major ingredient in the agency’s early success.

Another part of the picture is how ThomasArts has worked to make everyone feel like they’re an ‘Adopted Thomas’ both in a sense of shared ownership as well as feeling valued as family. Just how did they pull that off? By practicing something Dave jokingly likes to call “Entrepreneurial Marxism.” “That means we go about our business like entrepreneurs and really understand and appreciate free enterprise and all that it means. But we share the wealth with all of our employees. For the people who contribute in big ways, we have big rewards,” he explains. The takeaway? ThomasArts is a munificent employer.

Dave has no intention of slowing down because the way ThomasArts is structured allows him to do what he loves best in the company of people he loves and respects. As long as he doesn’t have to oversee details. “Did you know I’m not a detail person? In fact, the only thing you could get fired for in this company is giving me the only original of anything,” he laughs.

“When you’re working with good people and good clients, there is an excitement and energy that the work breeds. You can come into work tired because you were up late working on something, and then you have a challenge that awakens your mental powers. You start thinking about strategic direction, and when you really engage mentally in solving problems, you come out of that process more energized than you were when you started. I find great energy just in the pleasure of doing this work,” Dave says.

“We’ve grown this culture the right way from the beginning. It’s a culmination of all the things we’ve learned—that creative has a key place, but doing great work for clients is the most important. Media, account management and strategy all have an important place, too.

“When you get it right and you’re thinking about the clients’ needs first, that’s when you form relationships that last. After all these years I’ve been in advertising, ThomasArts has grown fast because of all those people I worked for over 25 years are in different places and they’re all hearing that we’re back in business. They already understand we know how to grow their business. But the really rewarding part is when they tell me they called because they trust us,” says Dave.

Featured in the June 2007 Adnews
By Marc Holmes

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