Maybe our friend Dean over at Black Lab Five can shine some more light on this, but Copper Advertising, formerly known as TraverRohrback and a shop that has done good work that got some national attention, has closed its doors. I know they always tried to lure good creative talent there (I say that, ever so humbly, because more than one creative recruiter over the years called me about them.) This story in the Kalamazoo Gazette has more.
“It seemed like we had great accounts that just never went forward, progressed or grew,” said Alan Wolstencroft, a creative director whose job at Copper was terminated last month. “ I just wish there was more business… I don’t know if it’s the economy or maybe Kalamazoo is a hard region to pull together.”
Is it getting tougher, or easier, for small regional shops to do business?
Dang. How sad. They had a good thing going there with all there work. Those Gordo snowboard radio are just plain genius.
Not much to report from me — I left 18 months ago. It is always disheartening when an agency closes.
This ad agency had been deteriorating ever since Lawler Ballard sold out to Earle Palmer Brown back in the early 90’s. Not a surprise.
Bad creative plus bad strategy = disaster
Copper had some great work. Sad. Remember the library spot? The Gordo radio? “I canned that old corn dog.”
I was one of thoses creatives that left Manhattan to go to Copper with the dream of helping put them on the creative map. A gamble indeed, but I felt ready for a big jump. People looked at me like I was beyond crazy. It was a good year there, but quickly went south beyond that. No budgets. Creative was solid (Gordo, Wild Africa, American beer month), but not everyone was thinking big. There are much worse cities, however ‘the zoo’ was a pretty odd place.
Well I heard there was a partner defection, who took some good talent from copper. Many companies cannot survive that kind of betrayal.