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Reorganized as Watson, Richmond Ad Agency Personifies the Ultimate Partner |  |
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Joel Constantz 804- 698-6306 jconstantz@watsonway.com Joan Prescott 757-331-4620 joanprescott@direcway.com Veteran Team Orchestrates Client-Customized Solutions For Bottom-Line Results (Richmond, VA; December 20, 2005) - A veteran management team of six operating partners and staff from the Richmond, Va. advertising agency formerly known as Just Partners and later, Work, Inc., is reorganized under a new name, WATSON, with a new location at 23 West Broad Street. Watson is providing world class creative, "thought leadership" strategy and competitive account services to its clients through a cost effective integration of in-house and outside strategic resources. "We believe our new way of doing business is responsive to marketplace demands," said partner Joel Constantz. "Our goal in reorganizing with a flat management structure is simply to provide even better value to our clients with an 'all A team' approach. We are strengthening our role as an agency integrator, putting together inventive, client-customized marketing communications solutions, regardless of the source, to deliver bottom-line results." Three of Watson's partners, executive creative director, Carolyn Tye McGeorge, and Joel and Shelly Constantz, have worked together since 1996 as part of the management teams at the Richmond agency, Just Partners, which became Work, Inc. three years ago following a merger. Other Watson partners, Kristi Ashley, Rob Austin and Chris Just, also have long tenures at the agency. Together, the team brings extensive backgrounds and experience with major ad agencies, corporations and national brands. Just Partners founder, Don Just, formerly CEO of The Martin Agency, is moving on to pursue a long held desire to educate the next generation of advertising professionals at the Virginia Commonwealth University Ad Center. Cabell Harris, the founder of Work, Inc., retains the rights to that name. Constantz describes the agency's evolution into Watson as "An unmerger that has been amicably occurring for about a year. It represents the continued maturation of our agency in response to changing market demands," Constantz said. "While the sky isn't falling on the advertising industry, traditional, vertically structured, 'star managed' agencies have been increasingly challenged over the past few years to provide real value to their clients, who are looking for more relevant, cost-effective advertising solutions. With Watson, we are creating a leaner, meaner agency structure with greater cost return ratios for our clients because they don't have to pay to support agency overhead and resources they don't use." Watson's team builds on a network of strategic collaborations, the Watson League, which the partners are adept at orchestrating in order to bring clients many types of specialized services and results-driven marketing communications firepower. "We didn't invent the agency integrator concept, but we are taking it to the next level," Constantz said. Recent collaborations have included work with top tier providers such as OgilvyOne, The Media Edge, Mindshare, Weber Shandwick, Harris Interactive, Hall & Partners and Look-Look. Watson has a solid list of loyal and long-term clients who value the agency's world-class creative solutions. They include Riggs Bank, Washington, DC; Cendant Hotels, Parsippany, NJ, and its subsidiaries, Super 8, and Wingate Inns; Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation, Gettysburg, Pa; the Virginia Housing Development Authority and YY Cosmetics, both headquartered in Richmond, Va. The partners' results-based work for other high profile clients, including Wrangler Jeans, BankOne, US West, Gulfstream Aerospace and many others, has won widespread acclaim and numerous awards. Its 2003 campaign for the Virginia Tourism Corporation, which was managed by partner Kristi Ashley, generated a record $15.2 billion in economic impact for the Commonwealth (despite a nation-wide post- 911 travel/tourism slump that devastated much of the rest of the country.) Partner Rob Austin oversaw the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation's award-winning youth anti-smoking campaign, which achieved 60 percent awareness among Virginia youth and a Cannes award for its website in its first five months in the marketplace. Carolyn McGeorge was at the center of the team's work for Colonial Williamsburg that reversed a ten-year decline in visitation and revenue. Constantz said that Watson will continue to grow with emphasis on carefully selected clients in business categories where the agency has expertise and a demonstrated track record, including financial services, consumer goods, business-to-business, travel and leisure and nonprofit sectors. A key element of the agency's realignment is a physical move to new space in the heart of Richmond's historic commercial downtown. "This soaring, open space in the city's artistic and cultural heart complements and inspires Watson's energy, creative personality and team management style," Constantz said. For more information about Watson, visit www.watsonway.com. |