Broadhead celebrates ten years

The agency that became Broadhead was born, like most great things, in a converted spare bedroom. The year was 2001. Square feet: Unknown.

The approach was summarized by the Broadhead mantra, "Cut the bull."We've always been focused on exploring new avenues of thought for our clients, always with the goal of producing real results beyond expectation. We've grown, the definition of an agency has evolved, but those goals have continued to guide our efforts."FORMIDABLEAt the same time, he proved unafraid to play with the traditional boundaries of conventional agricultural shops. John Walker had built a career around consumer-directed marketing, serving as a creative director at Best Buy, BBDO and Bozell before joining Broadhead in 2007."'Cutting the bull' is about doing what's right for the client's business," says Broadhead VP Burgy. "For a lot of our clients, both ten years ago and today, the success of the campaigns and programs we have proposed is measured against the bottom line. In addition to providing top-line strategy and planning, we have to ask ourselves, 'How can our work generate more calls to a dealer or sales rep, or drive more prospects to a web site?'"This dedication to staying abreast of change and appropriating new technology to match client potential is one of the reasons turnover has remained so low at Broadhead, both in terms of clients and employees.Broadhead explains, "Our willingness to invest in top-level talent, putting years of experience on the ground each and every day for clients, is one of the things that has set us apart from other shops."AGENCY MODEL CHANGEDTom DiBacco, a Beltway insider, had served in the press corps aboard Air Force One and worked as a producer at ABC News for more than a decade, joining Broadhead in 2006 to bookend the agency's consumer media relations capabilities from his D.C. office.When Broadhead first opened the doors of the agency in 2001, the "plus Co" was a network of trusted associates in the Minneapolis ad community. The addition of agency veteran Beth Burgy to Broadhead in 2003 typified his goal to hire great people who could move the ball forward for clients."We have a lot of people here who are very knowledgeable about the ag industry, and we've intentionally hired creative people with non-ag backgrounds--people who can generate fresh ideas," says Walker, the agency's creative director. "At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter if you're selling Heineken or herbicide, the problems are the same; so you have to be relevant, interesting and get noticed."LOOKING AHEADIn those first few years, Broadhead quickly built up an enviable roster of agency and industry veterans. Dee Weeda, Linda Romander, Troy Schroeder, Lori Maude, Kiersten Schroeder, Lannie Dawson and Cliff Owen all had years of experience when they joined Broadhead, and their resumes read like a roadmap of "Who's Who" in rural and agricultural communications.If you stepped inside Broadhead today, you might be surprised to find a creative team with a decidedly non-ag background. In fact, a growing number of agency hires have backgrounds outside of rural communications.In the decade since Broadhead set up shop in a spare bedroom, the agency bearing his name has grown by nearly 1,000%. Square feet: Growing."Part of what attracted me to Broadhead six years ago, and a large part of what has kept me here since," says Associate VP Troy Schroeder, "is the fact that Dean has a real vision when it comes to serving the needs of producers, rural consumers and the companies that work on their behalf.PEOPLEOUTSIDE OF RURALWith the ten-year anniversary approaching, it's a time to celebrate past successes, but for Dean and others at the agency, it will be but a brief look back before pitching in once again toward the evolution of Broadhead and what it means to be a rural lifestyle agency today and ten years into the future."By 'growing up' over the past decade, we've been able to embrace and build for the market," Broadhead says. "We have not had to retrofit and fundamentally change an existing culture and process, and that's a huge advantage. Since we started, we've worked hard to read the market and build an agency to meet its needs, while remaining unafraid to invest in the people and technology that allow us to better serve our clients.""It starts with thought leadership," Broadhead says. "We've seen the marketplace evolve in the past ten years at a pace like never before and there is no doubt that rate will only increase.Indeed, Broadhead's client list is formidable. Boehringer Ingelheim, AGCO, The Mosaic Company, The Almond Board of California and several U.S. government agencies all have long-standing relationships with the agency, and all have benefited from Broadhead's commitment to exploration without sacrificing results.As Broadhead enters its tenth year of business, the office is more established but far from settled. With additions to core account teams, an expanding creative arsenal and a burgeoning interactive discipline, it's clear that Broadhead's dedication to providing the most to clients hasn't waned."From the start, I was really looking for people who had the experience to advise clients--answering questions from experience," says Broadhead. "Senior people on your business daily means we can think several steps down the line and make quick shifts in our approach. With today's technology that can be the difference of a campaign hit or miss."by the Agri Marketing Editors"The agency business model fundamentally changed when the Internet came along," says Broadhead. "Not only did it change the way in which we built communications for clients, it changed how those communications were produced. It changed productivity. It changed margins. It changed everything."Still, Dean Broadhead saw an opportunity, in the rural sector, specifically, but from an agency standpoint as well. A smaller, more flexible shop could more easily meld itself around client needs and, in the process, better serve that client's business objectives.At a time when many of the larger agencies in Minneapolis were just beginning to feel the pinch and most of today's award-winning boutique shops were still ideas or barely hatched, the decision to go out and do your own thing carried a sizable risk.

by the Agri Marketing Editors