MADMEN Of Mid-Missouri

New communications company expands, integrates vertically

For a young company growing at hyper-speed, Pure Marketing and Media had an inauspicious start.

About 18 months ago, Brent Beshore and Erik LaPaglia were meeting for lattes at the Coffee Zone to exchange business advice. Beshore was taking a break from graduate studies and running a new company, Event Solutions, that orchestrates events, while LaPaglia was working as a regional marketing agent for Mediacom’s advertising and sales division, OnMedia.

Some of Event Solutions’ clients had asked Beshore if he would like to also act as their marketing and advertising agency. Beshore had been declining such offers, but then he received a proposal from a big client that he could not pass up. Beshore wondered what to do next. LaPaglia advised him to buy into an existing marketing and advertising agency.

LaPaglia then asked Beshore for advice. OnMedia had offered him a promotion at the same time that a start-up media outlet offered him the position of president, he told Beshore.

As they discussed their dilemmas, LaPaglia made an offhand remark: Maybe they should start a company together.

“We both laughed it off at first,” LaPaglia said. “In about two weeks, we realized that not only could we start something together, but that it made a lot of sense. There was an opportunity in the market place, so we pulled the trigger.”

Today, the company that was conceived over coffee has about 50 clients, projected annual revenue of more than $3 million, two subsidiary companies and 26 employees.

Beshore, 26, is the chief executive officer and co-owner.

Beshore grew up in Joplin, and his father, Lance Beshore, rose up the ranks at Leggett and Platt, a Fortune 500 company of which he’s now vice president.

Beshore graduated from Washington and Lee University in Virginia in 2005, and then enrolled at the University of Missouri to pursue a joint master’s degree in business administration and law.

He put his studies on hold in 2007 to start Event Solutions with a classmate’s wife, Haley Atkins. (Beshore’s wife, Erica, is still working on her doctoral degree in molecular microbiology and immunology at MU.)

In February 2008, he and LaPaglia launched Pure Marketing and Media.

Beshore said they wanted to set the company apart from other advertising, marketing and media agencies in Columbia by vertically integrating an audio and video production company, Arable Entertainment, and a research company, Insight. Projects could be completed within the company, from the brainstorming to the production.

In three to four months, Beshore and LaPaglia plan to launch a third subsidiary company, Verity Interactive. The company will offer bundled Internet services.

The downside of such swift growth? Running out of office space. Pure recently moved its headquarters from the Village of Cherry Hill to West Broadway. Already, the new office is too small to accommodate all of the employees, and the search for larger office space is on again.
When clients choose to work with Pure, they also get to use the services of the subsidiary companies.

For example, William Woods University asked Pure’s staff to put together a 30-second commercial for its adult education programs. The Pure team started by analyzing the research and studies on the subject of adult education.

Then the team created a branding and communications plan based on the research findings. For the William Woods commercial, the Pure staff decided to focus on the concept of how working adults lack the time to attend school.

“We take the creative challenge and come together as a team to brainstorm how to create a piece of communication that is compelling and breaks through the clutter,” said Mark Swanson, Pure’s chief creative officer.

Once the staff agreed on several ideas for the TV spot, they wrote the scripts, designed the storyboards with key frames and presented the proposals to the client.

The proposed commercial opened with a woman shopping in a grocery store. Then the scene froze, and the announcer asked what would happen if there was more time to do things, such as going back to college to receive a degree. The announcer then talked about all of the opportunities available for adults at William Woods. The commercial ended with the woman sitting in a classroom as time unfroze.

“We played on the idea of, ‘What if you did have enough time to learn, enrich your life and return to college?'” Swanson said. “We worked on making this vision a reality.”

After the client chose the script and storyboard, the commercial needed to be produced.

The Pure creative team worked with Arable Entertainment staff to execute its vision for the TV spot. Currently, they are scouting for a location actors. Once the commercial airs, Pure plans to analyze audience reaction and gauge the success of the advertisement.

“Learning from our results is essential,” Swanson said. “By analyzing and measuring the customer’s reaction to a brand, it enables us to fine-tune our approach for the future.”

Although this William Woods University example is a local project, Pure is focusing mostly on the national market. About 80 percent of the company’s clients are regional and national, Beshore said. Citing many clients’ need for confidentiality, he declined to name clients.

“We started looking at the work we were producing and the work that national agencies were producing,” Beshore said. “We sat back and said, ‘Hmm. I wonder if we can make it to the national scene. I wonder if we would get any nibbles.'”

From the beginning, Beshore and LaPaglia envisioned becoming a national agency, but they thought it would take at least five years.
“If you hire amazing people telling the story and amazing people who are creative, you’ve got a shot,” Beshore said. “That’s what we did. We upped our leverage, made a concerted effort and we pushed. Now we are getting results.”

Since the end of June, the company has pitched its services to three Fortune 500 companies and finished producing its first feature-length film, “10 Hours a Week,” as well as a music video for the White Rabbits, a band that formed locally, now is based in NewYork and has recorded two albums.

The video, which was filmed by Arable Entertainment, Pure’s film subsidiary, drew attention to the single, which led to an appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” a stint as iTunes video of the week and a soundtrack for Ralph Lauren’s fall collection, according to an Arable news release.

“The doors that we get in, it’s not like you can just call these people up,” Beshore said. “On a national level, you have to have the contact, you have to have the in and the show-stopping work. We have all of that, and that’s why we get in the door.”

For example, one of Pure’s employees had a high-level contact at one of the Fortune 500 companies. By introducing the company and its work, the staff member was able to arrange a meeting with the organization.

When dealing with clients based outside of Columbia, Beshore and his staff let the clients specify what would be the best form of communication.

“We leave it up to them,” Beshore said. “Some like to use AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), e-mail or LinkedIn, while others prefer face-to-face interaction. Then we would fly there.”

Some clients have inquired if Pure will be opening satellite offices in other cities and states. Beshore has been thinking about expanding the company’s presence to Kansas City and St. Louis and is in discussions about doing just that.

The company also expects to hire even more staff and has implemented a new internal process.

“The process is the biggest challenge, and it took a long time to refine it,” Beshore said. “A couple of weeks ago I saw a project that I didn’t even know we were working on. But, the structure worked because the project went through all of the needed steps. It was finished, and the clients loved it.”

Pure Marketing and Media
1207 W. Broadway, Suite B
Columbia, MO 65203
573 445-0678
www.whygopure.com