Tic Toc: Digging Deeper - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing - American Executive

Tic Toc: Digging Deeper

Media-Entertainment

Written by Jill Rose

Tuesday, 01 April 2008

Tic Toc: Digging Deeper - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing

This promotional marketing firm does more than just scratch the surface of its client relationships.

Premier Business Partners:

Schaffer Partners, Inc.

You could say Paul Gittemeier was in the right place at the right time. In 2004, after 24 years in the business, Gittemeier took over as CEO of promotional marketing agency Tic Toc. The company had become cohesive after its formation in 2000 from a merger of small agencies and realized its attempt to launch an online portal for promotional products was a mistake. Since 2004, the company has grown steadily and now boasts five branch offices serving mainly Fortune 500 companies and generating more than $50 million in revenue.

Paul Gittemeier, CEO

But dig a little deeper, and it becomes clear the company’s growth under Gittemeier was not about timing. Rather, Tic Toc’s CEO has helped the company succeed by concentrating almost completely on relationships, both internal and external.

“Relationships are incredibly important in this business. In the last few years, we homed in on building and nurturing our client relationships,” said Gittemeier. “This goes far beyond picking up the phone and saying, ‘What do you need today?’”

Getting to know you
Many of those clients are marketing professionals; some are purchasing agents. Almost all are from corporate giants like PepsiCo, 20th Century Fox, and Samsung. Tic Toc provides custom premiums such as toys found in restaurant kid’s meals, performance marketing programs such as incentives for cellular phone salespeople to sell a certain brand, and administration of games, contests, and sweepstakes.

With marketing departments running leaner than ever these days thanks to budget cuts, Gittemeier’s team works constantly to provide the most value possible. “Our goal is to be as much a part of the marketing team as possible and elevate our client in the eyes of the people he or she serves,” he said.

To that end, Tic Toc’s account executives and account directors make an effort to get to know the clients as friends rather than keeping things strictly business. “It’s all about having a personal relationship.”

Those relationships made the decision to drop three large clients doubly hard. But when Gittemeier took over the lead role, he and his team looked closely at the things that had been draining the company’s resources—and that included clients.

“These companies required us to staff their accounts with several people and hold and maintain large amounts of inventory, but they were not willing to commit to us the corresponding business that would allow us to make money,” said Gittemeier.

Although the decision to resign from the accounts was difficult, it was the right thing for the company. “These were very large companies that anyone would have salivated over,” he explained. “But we just couldn’t make money no matter how hard we tried, and in the end, it was the right thing to do. Looking back, we probably should have done it sooner.”

Fitting in
On the employee side, there are no such problems. Indeed, Gittemeier said Tic Toc receives frequent calls from people interested in working for the company and enjoys very low turnover.

The first step in creating that type of atmosphere is hiring people who fit with the culture, which is fairly laid back. Employees with children are encouraged to attend school and sporting events, and the frenzied late-night projects common to marketing are a rare occurrence.

“We have a great culture here, and people know their contributions are important. We’ve also figured out through trial and error that there is a certain kind of person that does really well in this business,” said Gittemeier, noting that those from traditional advertising agencies are usually not a good fit.

One of the company’s goals is to continue to be the type of place where everyone wants to work. Said Gittemeier: “Our employees really enjoy being here. It’s more than a job and a source of income—it’s a lifestyle. And we go to great lengths to respect their individual lifestyle.”

That goes for all employees, not just those in the company’s Dallas headquarters. With branch offices now in Southern California, Kansas City, New York, Chicago, and London, weekly telephone meetings help keep everyone abreast of developments. “We also have folks from our other offices come to headquarters every six to eight weeks, just so there’s a lot of good camaraderie,” explained Gittemeier.

Filling a need
One thing that’s certain at Tic Toc (Tic stands for The Imagination Company, Toc for Tomorrow’s Original Creations) is that each project will be unique, from creating a moveable plush toy for the new Dr. Seuss-based movie, “Horton Hears a Who,” to designing high quality, kid-safe masks for the latest “Spiderman” flick.

“Clients have a need—a product to promote, a service to sell,” said Gittemeier. “They tell us what they want to accomplish, and it’s our job to come up with a good way to make that happen. For instance, they might need people to come into their store to sample their product.”

Gittemeier and his team have their eye on two trends: digital promotions and green ones. He said his team is looking for ways to sell green products and for the company itself to become more environmentally conscious. Working closely with an outside contractor, the company is exploring how digital marketing can play a starring role rather than a supporting one in Tic Toc’s promotions. In fact, Gittemeier and his team are considering acquiring the contractor or finding another way to bring digital expertise inhouse.

Regardless of the project or the trend, count on Tic Toc finding its way to a successful relationship.

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