It’s called The Public Bath, and a lot of people have grown pretty fond of it over the years.
The first issue, published in the fall of 1982 and distributed to 300-400 existing and potential clients of the business-to-business advertising agency Media II, was pretty basic, perhaps reflecting the recession then raging throughout the Rust Belt.
The pencil sketch art was rough and the copy cried out for a sharp-eyed editor. The newsletter’s name, Harry explained in that inaugural edition, came from antiquity, when “the public baths were places that men of learning and curiosity gathered to exchange ideas … This is not first-thing-on-Monday-morning reading. This is more like fifteen-minutes-till-lunch-on-Friday reading.”
The original purpose, Harry admits today, was nothing so lofty as image building for the agency. Rather, his industrial clients at the time were badly in need of periodic primers on the basics of marketing, including basic conundrums such as black-and-white vs. color ads.
“Most of those people are sales managers or in similar fields, with no background in marketing-communications. So we wanted to provide some education on topics such as printing and graphic design.”
As for the low-pressure approach the newsletter has taken throughout its history, he says, “In our field, we don’t think we can do a real hard sell.”
For years, the newsletter was admired by many in the local advertising and related creative communities who saw it as a soft-sell approach to promoting marketing-communications services. In recent years, it has grown to an oversized four-pager, published quarterly. Brimming with well-packaged tips on marketing and related topics, it’s handsomely designed and edited with a light touch and a restrained sense of humor. It includes recipes, contests and trivia.
So informative are the how-tos on such topics as constructing news releases and responding to declining trade magazine inquiries that the agency at times seems to run the risk of giving away its expertise rather than luring in potential clients.
A favorite feature is an analysis of the effectiveness of a particular ad. If it occasionally relies too heavily on suggestions derived from the halls of Penton Publishing, the large Cleveland-based trade publisher, that comes off as more misdemeanor than felony.
Over its history, the newsletter, which in recent years has grown to a circulation of about 1,300, produced a handful of new business leads.
“But not as many as I would have liked,” says Harry.
And it was becoming pretty costly to pull off, if not in money, at least in time. Agency staff member Lori Valyko Weber, who edits it, puts considerable time and effort into the project. Harry has never really stopped to tally the real financial or opportunity cost of producing it in-house, he says, which is probably for the best.
“I’m afraid that if I did, I probably wouldn’t continue to do it,” he says.
Harry began the agency 27 years ago to service his initial client, Reliance Electric, a Cleveland-based Fortune 500 company. Over the years, the partnership progressed spectacularly for the small agency. The flip side?
“We fell into the trap where Reliance was 40 percent of our business. And we were working hard every day to fill their needs, and weren’t out calling on other people.”
Naturally, disaster eventually struck.
As with many a large Cleveland company before it, a couple of years ago, Reliance decided to move much of its local operations south, to Greenville, S.C. And its ad business was going with it.
Fortunately, the client gave Media II sufficient notice to pick up the pace on attracting new clients. Which is where the newsletter came in.
“We went in and talked to people, and they said, ‘Oh, you’re the folks who do the Public Bath!”
While Media II is hardly the household name in Cleveland larger agencies such as Wyse and Meldrum & Fewsmith are, its newsletter has become much better known than the agency behind it.
“It’s given us instant credibility” in helping to land new clients, says Harry. He expects the agency will get back to around $1 million in business this year, possibly more.
In the end, the agency’s founder sounds as if he thinks he dodged a bullet. Says Harry: “This was a wake-up call.”
Chances are, The Public Bath is safe for a while longer.
How to reach: Media II, (216) 481-1866 or www.mediaii.com
John Ettorre ([email protected]) is a contributing editor at SBN.
