Marketing Slump

On a day in late August, the staff of AdvertisingWorks in Naples gathered for a meeting to learn the firm would be shutting its doors. Employees, including director of corporate communications Vivian Dawson, had seen it coming—even though it took a while to accept that the award-winning company was closing.

The breakneck pace from a couple of years ago, when the staff worked late hours to accomplish clients’ marketing needs, wasn’t required as often. The 180-degree turnaround happened over time as the market changed and clients were unable to stimulate sales, says Dawson.

 

"They just realized spending money in the traditional ways was not going to make a difference to the economy, so they pulled back," she says. Clients chose less newspaper advertising and axed plans for brochures and other collateral material, Dawson says.

As Advertising Works’ clients cut budgets, owner Lisa Peteler says she was faced with replacing a lot of builder-developer clients with those in other types of businesses, and she would have had to downsize her 15-person staff.

"I would have had to lay off to move forward. I chose not to do it," she says. "My people were too good, and my attitude was, ‘We’ll go out together. Nobody deserves to get laid off.’ That was my way of going out on a high note."

Peteler says none of her clients, which included Centex Homes, dropped her. "I could have stayed in business. I would have had to diversify, and if I was going to put [in] that time and effort, I didn’t want to be in Florida," says Peteler. She owns a second home in Colorado, where she said she plans to move.

Other local marketing, advertising and public relations firms, from one-person shops to large agencies, also have been hit by the real estate slump.

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