Fallon moves on after co-founder's death, but Mpls. ad agency can't quite let go

Pat Fallon's office has barely been touched.

On the wall across from his desk is a print ad that his advertising agency made for United Airlines shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. On a nearby shelf sit cans of "fart spray," which he notoriously used for pranks.

It's closing in on a year after his death and 35 years after he, Tom McElligott and Nancy Rice started the Minneapolis ad agency now known simply as Fallon. His death from a stroke at 70 rocked the Twin Cities advertising community, which his agency's work had brought a spotlight to again and again since the 1980s.

"I don't think Pat will go away," said Stacy Runkel, who was his assistant for 24 years and still works outside the door of his office. "We're all kind of doing this for him."

While at the time of his death in November, Fallon had already stopped running the day-to-day workings of the agency, he would still be in the office almost every day and served as a "brand ambassador" and "keeper of the culture," Chief Executive Mike Buchner said.

"Pat cast a large shadow on this organization," Buchner said. "He was the heart and soul, the fire in the belly."

From its first days, Fallon McElligott Rice favored work that made clients uneasy, the New York Times wrote in Fallon's obituary. The firm announced itself in 1981 with an ad in the Star Tribune that said "A new advertising agency for companies that would rather outsmart the competition than outspend them." Today, the agency is still doing that with its "We have the meats" campaign for Arby's and "Do Plants" campaign for White Wave Foods' Silk milk.

Fallon was a challenger agency so it needed challenger brands who were willing to take risks, Wehrenberg said. Not every campaign worked. The agency's more notorious flops include ads for McDonald's short-lived Arch Deluxe sandwich and a mid-1990s Miller Lite campaign "the likes of which Miller had never embarked upon before — and probably never will again," the Wall Street Journal said at the time.

But in a testament to the firm's vivacity, many top executives at agencies around the Twin Cities sharpened their creative chops at Fallon at some point in their careers.

According to Ad Age, Fallon, which is owned by France-based Publicis Groupe, billed close to $33 million last year. The agency is expecting a 10 percent increase in billings this year. It is about the seventh-largest agency in terms of revenue in the Twin Cities, behind firms like Carmichael Lynch, Periscope and ICF Olson, which includes Olson and Olson Engage.

That is still smaller than the $40 million in billings Ad Age estimated for the firm in 2011 and well below its mid-1990s peak of around $200 million. In 2013, the firm lost two of its biggest clients, Cadillac and Purina.

Since then, the firm has launched a turnaround and added new business such as Loctite and the Big Ten Network. Pat Fallon was personally in the room sometimes to help close new business pitches. Trade publication Ad Age named Fallon the "comeback agency of the year" in 2015.

"We righted the ship; now it's really about positioning ourselves for the future," Buchner said.

Fallon executives said it is important that the agency stays hungry, which is what Pat Fallon would have wanted.

"We are always incredibly restless," said Rocky Novak, managing director at Fallon. "Even when you are doing really well, you can do better."

One of Fallon's experiments has been a program it has dubbed StarterKit which it started more than a year and a half ago.

The agency offers brand positioning and strategy work for no upfront fees to start-ups to help get the financial support they need to grow.

Around the time of Fallon's death, the agency also launched its internal Open Source program, which encourages employees to submit ideas for what they would like to see at the firm.

One such idea was submitted by an employee to paint the large wall that provides a backdrop to the office's lobby. A mural with the words "human magic" now occupies the space.

In an essay, Pat Fallon once wrote he believed the agency was magical. "Fallon is a timeless tribute to dreamers everywhere: To those who accomplish what others believe to be impossible," he wrote.

Executives say they will keep his office as it is, at least as long as they are in the building at Marquette and 9th St.

Runkel, who many credit as being the backbone for the firm almost as much as Fallon was himself, said she is still tying up loose ends for her old boss.

Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495

Twitter: @nicolenorfleet