Our letterhead says advertising, marketing, public relations, interactive, direct response. We do things like packaging and crisis communications and catalogue design. But the one constant - our product - is the idea. More than a killer media strategy or PR plan, deeper than a well-turned phrase or a magazine spread designed to within an inch of its life, the idea is our reason for being, and our escape from those who view companies like ours as little more than vendors.

Better Than Digging a Ditch.
We’re pretty darn fortunate. We get to think up stuff for a living. Ideas. Original ideas that create excitement, become part of the culture, and generate economic value for our clients and ourselves, making us all moderately famous in the process.

And those ideas are much, much bigger than thirty seconds or three-columns-by-six-and-a-half-inches. We reinvent products. We retool systems. We create new revenue streams. We change the future of companies with our ideas that get into all their nooks and crannies, blurring the line between the two of us. Ensuring that they – that we – thrive. And have fun doing it.

Along the way, we get to learn new things every day. We get to work side-by-side with funny/weird/scary-smart people like Rick Sweetser and Nico Alba, Debbie Bento and Tosh Kadama. We get to go along for the ride with visionaries like Alec Taylor and Jim Palmer and Katrina Hartwell. Hell, we’re asked to help build the road.

And we get to go home at night and be good/kind/decent/fun moms and dads and husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends because we don’t hate our jobs with every last fiber of our being.

Hate To Say, ‘I Told You So.’
This place has been “media agnostic” or whatever you call it for as long as anyone can remember. It’s just that in our case, it was out of necessity. We were painting on the street and creating fake Web sites and picketing events and handing out aluminum relay batons because we just flat-out didn’t have the money for TV. And, they were big ideas.

Integration? We’ve had Web designers and programmers and strategists sitting with writers and designers and AEs since day one. Partly because we didn’t have room. Partly because anything else just seemed stupid. And mostly because it’s more fun that way.

And frankly, that fun part is important. In fact, it’s how we’ve been able to sell many of the more courageous, risky ideas around here. Both to our clients, and each other. When someone sees and feels and smells how much you care, they want to be on your side.

May Your Ordinary Be Preceded By An Extra.
Every day here is truly extraordinary. On Tuesday, we’ll be selling sunglasses and something like sherbet, but better. Wednesday, we’ll teach a woman how to tell her husband he needs to get his heart checked. Friday, we plan on increasing sales of Narragansett Beer, one employee at a time. And next week, we won’t do it all over again.

Together, we’ve won Clios, Obies, Emmys and Bells, a bunch of metal bowls, some plexiglass things, some women with wings, “Best Concept” at a big interactive show and “Closest-To-The-Pin” at the Rumblestrip golf tournament.

And we’ve had some amazing people on our side since that day in 1973 when Dave and Rose set up shop in the bottom of the Regency Plaza with nothing more than a rotary phone and an Olivetti.

Through the years, so many greats have passed through here, and a whole bunch have stayed. From Kara Goodrich to Rae Mancini, Bill Heater to Josh Wood, Tony Tietze to Minty to The Shu.

Great accomplishments, great relationships and great stories. (Remind us to tell you about the time Al Lowe mooned Karen Winthrop across the piazza at Cathedral Square.)