111 PHOTOS BY DANIEL LIPPITT lielf()Ild Solomon Friedman's Terry McCarthy, Michael Bislin and Dean Friedman discuss a TV campaign. A lthough Detroit bounces in and out of the top six in nation- al population rank- ings, the area's advertising com- munity is rated as the third or fourth largest in the coun- try. It has been called by one of its key participants "the richest, most striving adver- tising community in Ameri- ca." Is it the vast talent pool available? Or is it the solid business management of the agencies themselves that is responsible for this dynam- ic, stimulating, creative and financially succesfu.1 growth market? What makes these agen- cies even more remarkable is that in the world's auto- motive capital, many agen- cies have become successful without a lucrative carmak- er account. Regrettably, W.B. Doner & Company declined to make' its president Alan Kalter or any lower echelon officials available to be in- terviewed. It is doubly un- fortunate because so many of those who did consent to be interviewed came up through the ranks of Doner, fondly regarded in past decades as arguably the De- troit area's most creative ad shop. We began each agency mini-profile by asking what was new on the ad world horizon as we approach the millennium. Originally, we planned to include a comment or two from each agency's major ac- count. Not surprisingly, all we heard from the clients was praise. Many of the statistics pre- ceding each mini-profile are taken from lists of leading advertising agencies, ranked by 1995 revenue. Whenever possible, the figures were up- dated for 1996. Some of Detroit's leading advertising agencies have moved far beyond just designing great ads. ALAN ABRAMS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS Solomon Friedman Main office: Bloomfield Hills, with offices in San Diego and Phoenix. Dean Friedman, president and CEO Chato Hill, creative director Billings: $44 million-plus. Number of employees: 70-plus in three of- fices Sampling of major accounts: (Film & En- tertainment) Dreamworks; Columbia/Tri Star Pictures; Paramount Pictures; Walt Disney Studios; Universal Pictures; Warn- er Brothers Pictures. (Retail/Consumer) Detroit Pistons basket- ball team; KFC Co-ops in two states; Qual- ity Farm and Fleet stores; Tuffy Auto Service Centers. (Business-to-Business) The Franklin Bank. (Live Events) Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival; The Parade Company. Also agency for Temple Beth El. T he biggest buzz in Detroit's advertis- ing community this year was created when Dreamworks, the movie studio organized by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, announced they had chosen Solomon Friedman as their agency. While that was great news for both par- ties, the agency's president, Dean Friedman, feared it would only serve to reinforce the once widely-held misconception that Solomon Friedman is a movie agency, the living lega- (7 of the former Robert Solomon Agency. But there's a lot more to Solomon Fried- man than just their lucrative movie business. It is one of the most well-rounded creative shops in the area. 'When I joined the agency in 1992," ex- plained Dean Friedman, "it was to create the next generation of leadership for the agency, and to create the third leg of the stool. "The first leg was the movie tradition, started in 1954, which has become one of the nation's largest field service agencies for most of the leading motion picture studios." They place advertising and handle publicity for film studios and their products in a specific geographic area — for the most part, met- ropolitan Detroit. "And we've only continued to get better at that, as shown by our recent addition of Dreamworks. "In the 1960s, we became a field service agency for Kentucky Fried Chicken Co-ops," said Mr. Friedman. "That means we repre- sent the franchisees, who create an adver- tising co-op in a local market to generate sales and increased results for their special mar- ket situations. We now represent seven KFC co-ops, primarily in Michigan and Indiana, and we've been told we're one of the coun- try's best KFC field agencies. "Also since 1992, we've been building the third l eg , which is traditional consumer goods advertising accounts. We have about 40 clients, from banks to manufacturers to re- tailers. We've had extraordinary growth and have been announcing new clients at an in- creasing pace because they seem to want our brand and style of creative." Mr. Friedman listed three primary ex- amples: Tuffy Auto Service Centers, the second largest after-market automotive franchise; Quality Farm and Fleet, a 108- plus chain in 29 major markets; and Franklin Bank. Solomon Friedman generated one of America's most successful bank advertis- ing campaigns on behalf of Franklin. It in- cluded three humorous spots: "Mr. Employed," "Big Bank Fees" and "Man's Relationship." The latter mimicked the "Dr. Laura" ra- dio show, where a caller complains about his relationship with a bank instead of a wife or lover. In the last three years, the Franklin cam- paign has received two American Market- ing Association awards. On May 13, the agency was presented the Financial Com- munications Society of America's FCF Port- folio Award for the Best Business to Business Radio Campaign. It was the second win in as many years for the agency. SOLOMON FRIEDMAN page 100