They're on the move

BY BOB RAYNER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Apr 9, 2006

Pack up the minivan, hitch up the trailer and don't forget the Susan Constant.

Elevation is on the move.

The advertising agency has been reeling in Virginia clients by the boatload, including the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, which runs Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center.

The Richmond firm developed a visually striking campaign to promote the two living-history museums. It's running in more than 80 publications, including numerous national magazines.

The agency just moved, too -- uptown, if only by a block or so.

Founded five years ago by Aaron Dotson and Frank Gilliam, Elevation bought and refurbished a 90-year-old commercial building on West Main Street near The Jefferson Hotel, just down the road from its old digs. Once the garage for a taxi company, the high-ceilinged, brick-walled, steel girdered, well-lighted offices offer the perfect ambience for an aggressive little agency.

The two partners, who learned the trade at Franklin Street Marketing in Richmond, opened up their two-man shop in a, shall we say, very cozy office on Patterson Avenue in western Henrico County. Both had young families and a taste for risk.

So far, it's paying off.

Now a six-person shop and a landlord -- a photographer rents space in the back of the building -- Elevation boasts some well-known state and local clients, including Performance Food Group, Virginia Credit Union, AMF Bowling, the River District Alliance, the Virginia Prepaid Education Program and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

The Jamestown-Yorktown campaign illuminates the Elevation approach. The initial ad, with the big 17th-century ship, is aimed mostly at audiences outside Virginia. A different version, targeting a local audience, is about ready to go.

Dotson and Gilliam like to hunker down and get to know the client and its needs.

In this case, that included trips with the kids to Jamestown, where the foundation's museum features a re-creation of America's first permanent English settlement and the ships that brought the settlers.

The travel was productive. The next day, Gilliam's son Alex, who is 9, told his dad he dreamed about the ships, couldn't get them out of his head.

"That gave us an idea," Gilliam said.

The agency already had a direction in mind.

"In the end, it's all about fun. History is fun," Dotson said. "We had to find a way to communicate the history and the fun."

They came up with more than a dozen ideas. That's standard procedure at Elevation, once they've developed a strategy. Many agencies prefer to hit clients with one or two killer ideas.

Elevation floods the zone, giving clients plenty to think about.

"With a strong strategy, there are many ways to bring that strategy to life in a compelling way," Dotson said.

Susan Bak, senior director of marketing for the foundation, which is a state agency, said the campaign needed to stand out in a very competitive industry but stay true to the mission to educate as well as entertain.

Elevation delivered.

"They brought a whole conference table of concepts," Bak said.

Elevation hoped to narrow it down to the three best ideas.

"They liked six," Dotson said. So the agency market tested all six, using the Internet to keep costs down.

A clear winner emerged. The tagline: "Make room for the memories."

The ad is dominated by the Susan Constant -- one of the ships young Alex Gilliam couldn't forget -- towed by a minivan.

"We thought this was the way to break through the clutter," Dotson said.

Bak agrees.

"Elevation brings a tremendous amount of creative energy to the table and they're easy to work with. That's a rare combination."

Plus, they don't break the bank.

Creative costs for the campaign were a little less than $80,000, Bak said. Media spending will run a little more than $900,000.

The results, she declared, are a bargain.