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Milestones: Influential Communications LLC.
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Business New Haven
12/13/2004 |
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by Karen Singer |
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Influential Communications LLC.
Ransom's Walk
937-4 Stratford Ave.
Stratford 06615-6354
Tel: 203-377-8852
Web: www.influentialcom.com
Ownership: Christopher Loynd
Milestone: 15 years
History
In the late 1980s, advertising copywriter Chris Loynd occasionally crossed
paths with Lou Milo, who owned a graphics design agency called RPM.
"We ran into each other on some projects," recalls Loynd, who asked Milo to
join him when he decided to open his own shop. The resulting partnership,
Influential Communications, began in 1989 in Milford as a small advertising
agency Loynd prefers calling "a marketing ideas consultancy."
The firm moved to Stratford in 1999.
Influential caters to corporate clients, with work ranging from one-time
projects to long-term relationships
Over the years the company has remained tiny, by design, with Loynd, Milo
and a bookkeeper at the core and a few freelance writers and designers as
needed. The number of employees, he says, has never topped five.
"We've always had a strategy of staying pretty small," says Loynd,
Influential's principal and communications director. "I always say instead
of having a standing army, we use mercenaries."
Achievements & Accomplishments
Commitment to "the idea process" underlies the company's longevity,
according to Loynd.
"To us, the most important thing is putting together ideas that are
memorable, having stopping power and are bent to a client's purpose," he
says. The approach has attracted some very substantial clients including
DuPont, FMC, GTE, Horrmann-La Roche, Prudential, SmithKline, Stauffer and
Union Carbide.
"It's unusual for an agency our size to work with a lot of big clients,"
Loynd notes with some understatement.
Influential works in a variety of media, ranging from brochures to Web
sites.
The firm's most extensive project so far, Loynd notes, was an eight-year
marketing stint with Milford Bank.
Among other projects for B2B clients, the company devised an advertising,
direct mail and sales support campaign aimed at helping the Knights of
Columbus' insurance sales force boost market share of its members' life
insurance policies.
Influential also created a series of newspaper ads resulting in improved
retail sales for locally grown plants at Glendale Farms during a year when
the popular pick-your-own strawberries farm in Milford lost its entire crop
of berries.
Looking Ahead
Loynd concedes business has been "a little bit slow" over the past couple of
years because in economic crunch times "advertising and marketing are one of
the first things to be cut."
But being "small and specialized, we can go out and grab business from a lot
of places, and we're less expensive than typical agencies," he says. Future
plans include more of the same - always with the primary emphasis on the
power of the idea."
Article from Business New Haven magazine:
http://www.conntact.com/article_page.lasso?id=38495 |
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