by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Michael Kreinest has been adjusting to market changes for the entire 18 years he has been in the advertising business. Raised in an Air Force family and living in Jacksonville, his first chance to develop an appreciation for being able to change course to reach a destination came with his first job.
“I went to work for a direct response agency in Philadelphia because I wanted to work in the Northeast,” he said. “I got the job and two weeks before I was supposed to move, the company decided they wanted to open a satellite office in Jacksonville and asked me to stay here since I knew the area and the market.”
A couple years later, he decided to strike out on his own and opened Creative Impact Communications. Kreinest said he got in during the early days of the Web revolution and secured several technology companies as clients.
“It was a really progressive, fast-moving environment. Working with those accounts was like, if a campaign was a couple of weeks old, it was ancient,” said Kreinest. “Clients did a lot of agency hopping and it was a great way to hone my skills and learn how to move as fast as the market did.”
One of his clients was America Online. Kreinest said eventually he was doing so much contract work for the Internet service provider he decided it was time to add some “associates” to the agency and change the name. Kreinest + Associates set up shop on the second floor of the Elks Building on North Laura Street in 2002.
The agency opened with four full-time staff members and has grown to 10 in five years.
The agency still uses some subcontractors Kreinest calls “highly-specialized freelancers” but the creative process is handled entirely in-house.
“That gives us the ability to scale up for large clients’ needs while maintaining our agency’s philosophy,” he said. “In my previous venture, I spent a lot of time planning and visioning. Now we spend our time taking advantage of evolving opportunities and doing good work. We’ve built a reputation for being able to solve problems other agencies can’t solve – or didn’t want to in the first place.”
He said having a small team allows the company to concentrate on its strengths.
“Most larger agencies focus on media buying because that can make a lot of money. We focus on planning and execution,” he said.
Kreinest also said the range and depth of skills he and his staff possess allow them to create marketing plans that touch all the bases, like the work they have done for VyStar. That involved everything from producing TV spots showing credit union members carrying on conversations with their cash to hiring bicycles with banners and giving away apple pies and bottled water on the street at last month’s grand opening of VyStar’s new Downtown branch.
“We’re not hung up on the glamorous side of the business,” he said. “We’re hung up on what we think is the essence of advertising: communication.”
One of the agency’s newest clients is Pillar Data Systems, a San Jose, Calif. company that designs processes to store data on computer networks.
“They could choose any agency they wanted,” said Kreinest. “There are plenty of fine agencies in California, but they chose to come here and we’re proud to be able to put an agency in Jacksonville on the short list for major national clients.”
Kreinest said he never gets tired of the pace and excitement, especially since firms that provide marketing and communication services are like barometers.
“Advertising is the backbone of commerce and capitalism. Ad agencies are the first indicators that a business category is going south – or when it’s about to explode.”