After nearly 20 years operating under the name Fruehling Communications, the San Diego-based marketing agency is changing its name to Red Lizard Creative.
The full-service advertising, marketing and public relations agency is officially introducing the name change June 17 at a celebratory party held at its office on Scranton Road in Sorrento Valley.
The agency, which for the last two decades has been synonymous with the agricultural industry, representing clients such as Arkansas-based Montana Tractors, decided to re-brand itself in order to branch into new industries and evolve with the ever-changing marketing industry, said President Lynne Fruehling.
“It’s really important to continue to go with the flow,” she said. “This allows to us to create a branding device, but let people know that we are doing business as usual.”
The company chose to be associated with a lizard because of what the creature represents, Fruehling said.
“They are sure-footed, quick-witted, agile and flexible,” she said. “That plays into our new brand.”
Red was chosen because of the emotions affiliated with the color red, such as energy and passion.
The company, which maintains a staff of 11, is not the first agency to change its name recently.
“Agencies do it all the time in a sense that everybody that was a partner had their name on the door and as partners retire or leave, that name goes off the door,” Fruehling said of the change.
Although the official launch is June 17, Red Lizard Creative has been functioning as a subsidiary of Fruehling Communications since 2001, when the company began toying with the idea.
The company has slowly been introducing the new name to its clients and has steadily expanded its products and services as well as branching into the health and life sciences industries.
Red Lizard Creative, which has 10 clients, has spent between $20,000 and $25,000 on the name change.
The company anticipates its revenues to reach $5 million by the end of 2005, a 341 percent increase since 2003.
Fruehling said the company would also be hiring three additional staffers by the end of the year.
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Mires Makes Some Music:
For more than 10 years, El Cajon-based Taylor Guitars has looked to brand design firm Mires to help bring its products to the market.
The local guitar company, which is one of the most well-known manufacturers of high-end acoustic guitars, once again turned to the Little Italy-based firm to help create and sustain a brand identity for its newest venture, the T5, also known as the Taylor Guitar Thinline Five-Way.
Mires, which began working on the campaign in November, was hired to build buzz for the T5, Taylor’s first hybrid electric and acoustic guitar.
The company, which had only two months to come up with a plan, began to establish the guitar’s credibility by profiling popular musicians using the guitar, as well as using the Internet to tease the product’s upcoming launch.
Mires, which has 20 employees, built brand buzz for the T5 by taking photos of musicians using the guitar and incorporating that into the campaign.
“For us the key was to capture the visuality of these guys playing the guitar,” said President Scott Mires.
The pictures, which included shots of local singer-songwriter Jason Mraz and local band Switchfoot, were used in Web promotions, print material and point of purchase displays.
Mires, which designated six staff members to the project, also created 30-second video clips of artists using the product.
“The key is continuity,” Mires said. “Understanding how to best touch the audience and how to do it in the most consistent way.”
The company, which projects its revenue to reach $3.5 million to $4 million by the end of 2005, is in the process of launching an additional Web component to the campaign in the next several weeks, he said.
The campaign has been a success, as the product has become the best selling guitar in Taylor’s 31-year history, Mires said.
According to Taylor Guitars, the T5 is expected to generate 100 times more sales than the cost of the entire campaign, he said.
Mires would not disclose the cost of the campaign.
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New Clients:
La Jolla-based public relations agency CIM Inc. has been retained by the San Diego branch of Gold’s Gym International Inc. to provide public relations services. Marisa Vallbona, the sole practitioner of CIM, was retained in March and will work through August, she said. … 760 Media, Inc., a Carlsbad-based advertising and marketing firm, recently completed the design of Elgar Electronic Corp.’s annual product catalog.
The 160-page catalog is comprised of products for EEC, a San Diego-based supplier of programmable power, and Sorenson, a supplier of programmable DC power supplies.
EEC acquired Sorenson in 1994. San Diego-based advertising agency AM Strategies has hired Jim Hartley as the vice president of business development. At AM Strategies, Hartley will be responsible for growing the agency’s retail-oriented client base.
Please send all media/marketing news to Lisa Kovach via fax at (858) 571-3628 or e-mail at lkovach@sdbj.com. Call her at (858) 277-6359, Ext. 3107.
