SHOES & SPORTSWEAR
Dennis Green
Inspired by the season, this year's collection
offers fresh sophisticated styling featuring
crisp silhouettes, sporty weaves and vibrant
spectators. Essential elements of texture,
style and comfort are created with natural
deerskin combinations, supple calfskins,
and exquisite exotics.
COLE-HAAN
Autin. Soft, supple deerskin upper.
Cushioned heel pad for added com-
fort. Flexible, nubby rubber driving
sole and heel protector. Handcrafted
in Italy.
Dennis Green: One employee.
Marius. Soft, supple deerskin upper
with hand-stitched vamp and quarter
detail. Cushioned heel pad for added
comfort. Handcrafted in Italy.
West Bloomfield
Collections
On the Boardwalk Orchard Lk. Rd. S. of Maple
626-3362
OPEN
Southfield • Roseville • East Dearborn
West Dearborn • Royal Oak • Eastpointe
Hamtramck • Waterford/Pontiac
Mon - Wed & Sat: 10 - 7 • Thurs & Fri: 10 - 9 • Sun: 12 - 5
Sisterhood of Congregation Shaarey Zedek
Wednesday, June 4, 1997
10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
$15 per ticket
THE DETROI T JEWIS H NEWS
Reservations Required - Tickets will Be Mailed Prior to the Tour
104
∎
Chairs: Rusty Rosman and Ruthe Goldstein • Sisterhood President: Judie Blumeno
624-0739
363-1595
Dennis Green Advertising
Main Office: Farmington Hills,
MI
Dennis R. Green, president/cre-
ative director
Billings: $1.3 million (capitalized)
Number of employees: one
Sampling of major accounts: Cap-
ital Mortgage Funding; Built-
Right Construction Co.; Super
Wireless Warehouse
H
is vanity plates read
"ICRE84U."
There is no mistaking
that this is the car of an ad
man with a mission.
And his toll free phone number
is 1-88THE ADMAN.
Dennis Green tries harder be-
cause he has to. Although his
agency does not appear on the
Crain's Top 25 list, his story is rep-
resentative of many other small
advertising agencies.
Always an optimist, Mr. Green
sees only the positive side of be-
ing a one-man agency. "When a
client deals with my agency, he
deals directly with the president.
At most agencies, that doesn't
happen," said Mr. Green.
Running a one-mak agency
means Mr. Green has to be on top
of things. "What's coming up is
more and more Internet market-
ing. More companies are finding
they can get some degree of re-
sponse. Internet is in its infan-
cy, like cable was 15, 20 years ago,
where you just barely heard about
it, and only a few people had it.
The Internet isn't a factor yet
in advertising, but it is danger-
ously close."
Mr. Green's agency has a Web
site. It isn't interactive, but it "isn't
quite necessary yet to be that dra-
matic and that technologically ad-
vanced, because people aren't fully
using it." Although he does get
"hits" on it, so far they have not
led to any new business. "I call
them up, and they've got $12 to
spend on advertising, so it is not
anybody serious yet."
He hasn't created any Web
sites for clients, although some
have inquired about it.
Mr. Green predicts a continued
shaking out of advertising agen-
cies at all levels. 'There have been
a lot of mergers and acqiiisitions,
and people have gone out of busi-
ness on my level." These were
agencies like John H. Rosen and
Goldfarb Advertising, who had
one major client and three or four
smaller ones. When they lost the
major client, they were forced out
of business.
"You're really vulnerable when
you have what we call a gorilla
client in this business," said Mr.
Green. 'That client can make not
only demands on you of your time
and your resources, but you've got
to take care of him because he's
the guy. But also if you lose him,
you may have lost everything.
"The experts say not to let any
one client account for more than
25 percent of your gross revenue
because, if you do, you've got a po-
tential problem." =\
Mr. Green also sees continued
technological change, with more
printing going direct from com-
puter right onto the press, elimi-
nating the middle stage of
photographic negatives. "You're
going to be able to etch the plates
right from the computer. And
that's going to bring down the cost
of printing."
He has seen increased use of —`
computers as a two-edged sword.
`They've allowed the cost of pro-
duction to go down, which makes
it more available. You don't have
to hire artists to do hours and
hours of rendering, and if some-
thing's wrong, you don't have to
go through it all over again.
"But the mixed blessing has
been that as more and more
clients have computers, they hire
somebody just out of college with
a B.A. in advertising and mar-
keting, and that's their advertis-
ing director. They cut out the
smaller agencies like us.
`The bigger agencies are not as
vulnerable to that because their
clients, by and large, understand
what an agency is for and they're
willing to let them make money,"
he said.
Another factor is the media.
"For a long time now, the media
has done free writing and free pro-
duction and have given the client's
15 percent discount on top of it
(the share that traditionally goes
to the agency), cutting out the
agencies totally. And again, when
you're dealing with small clients,
they dont always appreciate the
difference between the creativity
you can get from an agency and
what a hack over at a radio sta-
tion can put on the air. Not to say
they are all hacks, but a lot of
them just take a sheet of paper in
a studio and read it, and there's
nothing creative," said Mr. Green.
"As I look to the next 10 or 15
years that I want to continue to
work, you've got to find a niche, (,-\
you've got to find a position that
you can take, because the tradi-
tional ways of making money in