Sales, image and business development - Professional Services - Zimmerman and Partners Advertising - Great Expectations

South Florida CEO, Feb, 2003 by Jeff Zbar

You probably know the car commercials of Fort Lauderdale ad agency Zimmerman & Partners. You probably don't know that the agency created by CEO Jordan Zimmerman is a rising national star that will probably bill $1 billion this year.

As courtships go, Zimmerman & Partners Advertising was pretty hot for Great Expectations.

When executives at the Fort Lauderdale ad shop heard the dating service was looking for a new agency, they pulled out all the stops. Execs visited the company's Boca Raton offices to learn not only its marketing plans, but its business objectives, sales figure and competition. They then created five speculative ad campaigns, and tested each with separate focus groups -- dropping more than $100,000 in the process.

Worth the investment? After its pitch in December, the ad agency walked away with a $20 million account. "Others didn't take the time to learn our business. Zimmerman quickly identified the business we're in and the nature of what we needed from them," says Mitchell D. Brandt, president of G.E. Management Group Worldwide, Great Expectations' parent. "They're not going in by the seat of their pants."

In essence, Zimmerman & Partners is a business development company posing as an ad shop, a strategy that has served the company well. The firm closed 2002 with $127 million in revenues on $824 million in billings -- making it a top-25 national firm and one of the largest ad agencies off Madison Avenue.

At the helm is Jordan Zimmerman, 46, chairman and CEO of the 19-year-old agency. Launched as Zimmerman, McGee, Rose, Gitlitz and Gray from a small Fort Lauderdale office in 1984, Zimmerman & Partners is on track to top $1 billion in billings this year, he says. Yet, mention the agency in local ad circles, and people think of screaming car spots and Sunday circulars rife with fine print. Zimmerman & Partners was once known as a grind-'em-out automotive ad shop, churning out often unattractive work.

But in 1999, Zimmerman and his firm got a shot at the big time. Omnicom, the New York advertising and public relations agency holding company, had a chance to vie for Nissan's regional advertising work. Knowing Zimmerman & Partners' reputation with auto ads, Omnicom acquired the shop, and the two won the $200-million account.

Today, Zimmerman & Partners still cranks out 7,000 TV, radio and print ads a year. But its ads hardly resemble its former work. Along with AutoNation's Maroone and 2,200 other auto dealers, the agency handles campaigns for the Miami Dolphins, Fris Vodka, Lennar Homes and the Florida Panthers.

The agency's success can be traced to its accountability for ad performance, says Pat Patregnani, agency president and managing director. Its "Brand-tailing" concept -- using marketing to drive sales overnight while building brands over time -- dovetails with its "Z-Trac" ad tracking software. With Z-Trac, the agency assigns one of its 1,000 toll-free numbers to each of a client's ads. Those calls allow agency or client execs to track call volume, origin and duration, and even record the conversation to improve sales tactics. "We go in under a different approach than any other agency," Patregnani says. "We look at it from all angles."

Zimmerman himself is particularly keen on Power Trax, the agency's $6 million post-production facility. He likes to explain how having a graphics, recording and production studio allows execs to shift ad strategies on the fly, without outsourcing costly production services. The studio -- and Zimmerman's business-driven philosophy -- is what attracted Omnicom in the first place, says Tom Watson, vice chairman and chief growth officer with Omnicom Group. The shop's brand and retail focus, and its fast responsiveness to client needs, was missing among Omnicom's 1,500 other agencies. "They measure, test and change on a dime," Watson says.

Three years into his union with Omnicom, Zimmerman can't say how long he'll be around. Earn-out -- based on the agency's performance over the past three years -- was last year, and after spending 2003 under contract, he and his partners will be free to leave. If he stays, it won't be for the money; besides the sale proceeds, Zimmerman is president and part owner of the Florida Panthers. But he just may stick around to keep the agency on a business-focused course.

"Our job is not just to do the marketing, but to build the brand equity and differentiate the company," he says. "We talk about ROI, which I think is the future of the advertising world."