GSD&M Idea City

Articleissues|article=y
expand=September 2008
orphan=September 2008
advert=August 2008
refimprove=August 2008Infobox Company
company_name = GSD&M Idea City
company_
company_type = Public
foundation = Austin, Texas (1971)
location = Austin, Texas
key_people = Steve Gurasich, co-founder
Roy Spence, co-founder
Judy Trabulsi, co-founder
Jim Darilek, co-founder
Tim McClure, co-founder
industry = Advertising
products =
num_employees = 400+
homepage = [http://www.gsdm.com/ www.gsdm.com]
[http://www.ideacity.com/ www.ideacity.com]

GSD&M Idea City is an advertising agency located in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1971 by graduates of University of Texas at Austin. Since 1998, GSD&M has been part of the Omnicom Group.

The main office of GSD&M is located on 6th Street in Austin, across the street from the Whole Foods Market headquarters. Satellite offices are located in Chicago, Illinois and New York City, New York.

The agency was known as GSD&M until August 27, 2007 when it changed its name to GSD&M's Idea City. ["Idea City: GSD&M Retools for the Future," "Adweek Online" December 27 2007. [http://www.adweek.com/aw/regional/southwest/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003631730] ] "Idea City" was previously the name of the agency's Austin headquarters.

Clients

Of their current clients, some notables are: AT&T, BMW, MasterCard, Hallmark, Southwest Airlines, the U.S. Air Force, the American Red Cross, the PGA TOUR, AARP, World Market, and John Deere. They recently added L.L.Bean to their roster in the Spring of 2008. In 1986, the agency created the Don't Mess with Texas anti-litter slogan for the Texas Department of Transportation.

The agency started with local retail accounts and expanded to more regional work. In the 1990s GSD&M began to acquire more national brands outside of Texas and was regarded as a "creative hot-shop." [cite web |url=http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/11/gsdm.html?page=0%2C0 |title=Greetings from Idea City |last=Imperato |first=Gina | publisher=Fast Company |year=1997 |month=October | accessdate=2008-08-09]

AARP

The agency won a regional ADDY for their Divided We Fail campaign and lovable half-donkey half-elephant logo, Champ. [http://www.austinadfed.com/about_press.shtml Austin Advertising Federation]

American Legacy Foundation

The American Legacy Foundation was established in 1999 to counter the smoking epidemic. The most recent Idea City campaign is "Become and Ex," shown on the website, BecomeanEx.org [http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=79507 MediaPost, March 31, 2008]

AT&T Real Yellow Pages

Real Yellow Pages provides listings of local business.

BMW

Idea City has been with BMW since 2005. The Relearn to Drive campaign won an Effie in 2008, and their 1-series viral effort, the Ramp, received coverage on both CNN [http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/25/news/economy/cho_bmw/index.htm?postversion=2008062517] CNN Money.com; and the Wall Street Journal [http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121391470578790089-fNEzO7uAqg5WRiEDSfDRX6_aRVE_20080719.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top June 20th, 2008.]

Hallmark

Idea City works with the Hallmark mass channel brand, and the agency added the client to the roster in January 2006 [agency source]

John Deere

John Deere was added to the Agency’s roster in June 2007. “GSD&M wins Deere ad account” June 19, 2007 Austin American Statesman

Kohler

Idea City’s concepted the “Bold Look of Kohler” tagline and print work.

Lennox

Idea City has helped Lennox achieve record sales years for 2005 and 2006 [Agency Website]

MasterCard

As their media agency, Idea City has worked with Mastercards Priceless campaign for over a decade. [Agency Website]

Marshalls

GSD&M Idea City added Marshalls to their roster in June 2008. [ AdWeek, “GSD&M Snares pair” http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/account-activity/e3ie4014cd99a43c45e582fc782c0451fd7 ]

NCL

Idea City has helped define the relaxed, "Freestyle Cruising" approach. NCL is distinguished from its competitors by not having a formal cruise itinerary. [“Norwegian Cruise Line Floats 'Unrestricted' Vacation Idea”, May 15th 2007. Brandweek]

PGA Tour

Idea city helped develop the tag-line, These Guys are Good. [Agency website]

Popeyes

GSD&M Idea City also added Popeyes to their roster in June 2008. [AdWeek, “GSD&M Snares pair” http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/account-activity/e3ie4014cd99a43c45e582fc782c0451fd7 ]

American Red Cross

GSDM's Idea City helped develop the advertising materials for the American Red Cross [Agency Website]

outhwest Airlines

As an agency client for over 27 years, Idea City has helped translate their low fares into their freedom-to-fly mantra [Chicago Sun Times, June 6th 2006. “Southwest has an edge in Rare Fight”.] Today, they are now one of the largest carrier of domestic passengers in the country and the most consecutively profitable airline in the industry. [“Southwest. Way Southwest”; New York Times; February 13,2008; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/business/13southwest.html ]

Texas A&M

Idea City has helped with the repositioning Texas A&M [Agency Website]

United States Air Force

Idea City helped conceive the “Do Something Amazing Campaign” and the new, “Above All” tagline used by the USAF. [“GSD&M keeps USAF] April 3rd, 2008 Adweek http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i2eba2a8405f7548266ebecbad5f6ce7d ]

World Market

World Market joined GSD&M Idea City in May 2007 [GSD&M picks up World Market $60 million account is Austin ad agency's first retail win since 2005 By Lilly RockwellAMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF]

Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM

Idea City currently does the creative and media for Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM [http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=123122]

Wal-Mart

From 1987 until 31 January, 2007, GSD&M was one of two agencies that held the Wal-Mart account. In October 2006, Wal-Mart moved its $580-million account to Draftfcb, but Draftfcb soon lost the account when, on 7 December 2006, Wal-Mart fired two marketing executives who had led the account review and initiated a second review, alleging that the executives had accepted gifts from the agencies under consideration.

Draftfcb was not permitted to participate in the second review. GSD&M was invited to take part, but declined. "We helped build Wal-Mart from $11 billion in sales to $312 billion," said one of the agency's founders, Roy Spence, "We declare victory, and we are moving on." [Stuart Elliot, "Why an Agency Said No to Wal-Mart," "New York Times" 15 December 2006, p. C4.]

In addition to the Wal-Mart account, the agency also relinquished Chili's, Dreamworks, Frito-Lay, Fannie Mae and UnitedHealthcare in 2006-2007. The agency's Omnicom sibling, BBDO, was given the lead on the AT&T account, although GSD&M still works on it. However, on August 27, 2007, the same day GSD&M changed its name to GSD&M's Idea City, AT&T announced that it was planning to consolidate its media planning and buying work with one agency. GSD&M, which handled media planning and buying for AT&T's landline services, is one of the incumbent agencies that has been invited to pitch for the business. [Steve McClellan, "AT&T Media Contest Begins," "Adweek Online" December 27 2007. [http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003632101] ]

Trivia

The founders noted that their initials, which formed the company's name, could also stand for "Greed, Sex, Drugs, and Money", all of which could be factors in an advertising campaign. [Mark Morrison, "Herb Kelleher on the Record, Part 3," "BusinessWeek Online" December 24 2003. [http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2003/nf20031224_2773_db062.htm] ]

References