When a group of kids came "trick-or-treating" at Gus Paulos' home last Halloween weekend, one young man didn't want candy, he wanted Paulos' autograph.
"You're famous," he told the owner of Gus Paulos Chevrolet & Geo in West Valley City.Actually, like most people, Paulos' young admirer had never seen anything of Gus except the top of his head - bouncing across the television screen in the "Gus is short" commercials.
Gus can laugh at himself - and all the way to the bank - when he reflects on what the "short" commercials, and other well-known spots created by the Salt Lake office of EvansGroup and its chairman and chief executive officer, Dave Thomas, have meant to his dealership.
"Next time you see Thomas, tell him I don't like him," laughed Paulos. "I have to work too hard because those ads of his work so good."
Paulos isn't exaggerating. In the 14 years that he and Thomas have been dreaming up award-winning ads, Gus Paulos Chevrolet has risen to the top 50 of the nation's 4,800 Chevrolet dealers in terms of customer satisfaction. It is ranked No. 1 in sales for the Salt Lake Zone for Chevrolet and second in the six-state Denver region, selling some 2,400 new and 1,600 used cars annually.
"I honestly feel I can base a third of the success of this dealership on those ads," said Paulos.
Thomas says his goal was to create an image or "brand" identification for Paulos in the crowded auto dealership marketplace, not just promise lower prices or special deals as is the norm in car advertising.
"Gus' brand is not Chevrolet - people can buy Chevys at a lot of places," said Thomas. "We made a brand out of Gus Paulos and the result is that Gus is now a genuine folk hero."
Importantly, Paulos was part of the creative process, said Thomas.
"We can't do great work without great clients. Gus can see that when you poke fun at yourself, you humanize yourself, and humans like to do business with other humans. Lots of ads try to make a company look perfect, but there are a lot of skeptics out there. When you admit to a flaw or two, you make yourself more believable."
Before an ad agency can boost a client's believability, it helps to have some itself. In an industry in which the players can change faster than an NBA roster, Evans-Group - Marketing Communications this month is celebrating its 50th anniversary of providing advertising, marketing and public relations services in Utah.
And not just in Utah. Although its roots are here (see sidebar) EvansGroup has expanded into seven other cities where it operates full-service agencies. As a group, Evans now ranks in the top 40 agencies nationally in terms of fees for advertising services and is among the top 30 for its public relations work.
"We feel we have something unique to offer clients because we can serve them from more than one location," said Jon L. Johnson, president and chief executive officer of EvansGroup, the parent company of the company's eight offices.
Johnson cites FHP Corp., an Evans-Group client based in California with operations in other Western states. EvansGroup can serve the health maintenance organization from six of its eight offices - which are in Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City and Seattle.
From a few hundred dollars in billings when it was launched in 1943, Evans reached $1 million in annual fees in 1950, $5 million in 1960 (Evans had opened its first out-of-state office, in Seattle, in 1955. That office is now its largest.), $11 million in 1970, $50 million in 1980, $190 million in 1990 and $225 million in 1993.
The company currently has 385 employees throughout the Group and an annual payroll of $18 million. Ownership of the Group rests with the employees, of whom 90 own shares.
EvansGroup's growth has been well-balanced. Johnson says a third has come from mergers and acquisitions, a third from existing clients and a third from new business - the latter showing particular promise over the past 18 months.
"We've had a lot of new business coming in lately, and that's really the best way to grow because there is not as much cost associated with it," said Johnson. "I want to increase that $225 million in fees but keep the diversity of clients."
During the 50 years it has been in business, there have been only two in which EvansGroup did not make a profit. Johnson attributes that record to the firm's diversification of clients, none of which represent more than 10 percent of the total billings of $225 million.
The company's roster of some 150 current clients boasts such well-known entities as Bank of America, First Security Bank, FHP, Skippers, Starbucks, Wendy's, California Department of Health, ZCMI, ProForm and Chart House Restaurants.
In Salt Lake City, EvansGroup has two distinct personas. From its facilities at 110 Social Hall Ave., it functions as the corporate headquarters for the entire eight-state Group, headed by Johnson, as well as home base for the Salt Lake office, which Thomas oversees.
The Salt Lake office bills $30 million annually and has won more than 40 awards over the past three years for its ads. But it is also known for its pro bono work for nonprofit organizations, including the Humane Society, Tracy Aviary, the Lotus Project (assisting the homeless), the Salt Lake Olympic Bid Committee and the new Salt Lake BUZZ baseball team.
This year, the local office has taken on several new accounts, including fitness equipment manufacturer ProForm, medical equipment manufacturer OEC and the Wasatch Front Pontiac Dealers Association.
Thomas joined the Salt Lake Evans-Group office in 1989 when his former agency, The Thomas Group (previously the Salt Lake office of Cole & Weber, a Seattle firm), was acquired by Evans. Ronald A. Stone is president and chief creative officer. Mike Rodriguez, in charge of client services, and Mike Korologos, public relations director, are also executive vice presidents of the Salt Lake EvansGroup office.
Thomas, an Ogden native who got into the business by way of teaching high school band, playing honky tonk keyboard wherever he could find a gig, and composing advertising jingles, is very bullish on the Salt Lake advertising milieu.
"It's a very hot market here," he said. "We've advanced light years over the past five years to where the creativity available in Salt Lake rivals anywhere in the nation. You don't have to be on Madison Avenue anymore - we've got it right here."
For such a fast-changing industry, the parent company, EvansGroup, has demonstrated remarkable continuity of management, with Johnson one of only four CEOs to lead the company in its half-century of doing business.
A certified public accountant, Johnson joined Evans in 1967 from accounting firm Peat Marwick Mitchell. During the past 18 months, he has overseen a major reorganization and name change. In 1943, the firm began business as David W. Evans Advertising Agency. That was later changed to David W. Evans & Associates and later still, Evans Communications.
In 1992, the name EvansGroup was adopted because, said Johnson, it better defined the company's new role as a total marketing communications company that offers services from multiple offices.
Although Johnson assures that the EvansGroup headquarters will remain in Salt Lake City, it does require a lot of traveling on his part. "I'm in the frequent flier hall of fame," he laughs. "You would have to go back six months to find a full week when I was home."
Is further expansion in the works? That is client driven, he said. "We will stay in the West unless a client needs us elsewhere."
"Client" is the magic word for advertising and PR agencies - they are hard to get and even harder to keep. The national average longevity for a client/agency contract is seven years and declining (which makes the 50-year relationship between EvansGroup and turkey processor Nor-best among the longest-running in the nation).
"If you can keep continuity, you win," said Johnson. "But that doesn't mean you keep people on your staff who can't do the job. This still tends to be a younger person's business from the creative side. You have to watch MTV to know what's going on."
Sometimes you also have to be able to persuade the client to trust the agency, not his own instincts.
"Our job is to convince the client that what he or she thinks is not what matters," said Johnson. "It's what the consumer thinks that counts. It's a difficult process, but sometimes you have to stand firm against the client for the sake of his best interests."
The advertising business has changed greatly in recent years, said Johnson, with computers virtually taking over the graphics end of the business, representing a huge outlay in new equipment.
"What we do and how we do it has changed incredibly," he said. "We are actually an anomaly in the business with our eight offices - most have three or four at most. Some disagree with our philosophy of doing business, but they change their mind when they see our list of clients.
"Our focus now, under our Marketing Communications umbrella, is on such disciplines as direct response marketing, sales promotion and graphic design, as well as public relations. Advertising is still the largest segment of what we do, but it's not all we do.
"More than ever before clients move on - you can't stop that no matter how good you are. So for an agency to survive, you have to have talented people and deliver services on a cost-efficient basis. The ones who do that will be around 50 years from now."