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| The Missouri Honor Medal |
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| Recent Missouri Medalists |
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The wall-mounted exhibit in the student lounge in Neff Hall highlights winners of the Missouri Honor Medal. The touch-screen monitor is searchable by individual, year or organization.
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"Erase the line between agency and advertiser."
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Profile in Leadership: Chuck Curtis
2006 Missouri Honor Medal Recipient |
Chuck Curtis taught a master class for Missouri Journalism students on Nov. 1, the same day that he received the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.
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Front: Karen Brown Dunlap, president of The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.; Bill Kovach, founding director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists; Zubeida Jaffer, an acclaimed South African journalist; and Dean Mills, dean of the School. Back: Elson Floyd, president of the University of Missouri; Clifford Christians, an award-winning media ethics scholar; John Seigenthaler, founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center; Reza, photojournalist; Tom Rosenstiel, vice chairman of CCJ; Chuck Curtis, chairman of Valentine Radford/Square One Advertising, Kansas City; and Brady Deaton, chancellor of MU Columbia campus.
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By Craig Weiland
Assignment for New Intern: Create a handbill to be distributed for the promotion of a newly-opened gas station. The key benefit is that customers will receive a free watermelon when they buy at least eight gallons of gas.
The new intern from the Missouri School of Journalism dutifully began the assignment. He carefully wrote the copy and designed the layout with meticulous attention to eye flow and balance of the graphic elements, just like he was taught in his advertising program. After the young man's boss studied the initial attempt for a few minutes, he looked up and very kindly said, "Hmmm...I thought we'd say, 'FREE, FREE, FREE Watermelons!'" The intern quickly learned an on-the-job lesson: simple and direct gets the job done.
The year was 1967, and the lesson was one of many that Chuck Curtis, BJ '67, MA '70, would take with him as he rose through the ranks from an intern to a chief executive officer of a national advertising agency. In December 2006, Curtis retired as CEO of Valentine Radford/Square One Advertising in Kansas City after 30 years in the advertising industry. In that time, Curtis learned that it was important to be simple and direct not only in his work, but also in the relationships he forged along the way - relationships that would define his career.
Creating a Network
Curtis began building relationships early. Before he even graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 1967, he had landed his first job with Monsanto, an international agriculture company based in St. Louis, Mo. He spent three years working in Monsanto's corporate advertising department, where he built a strong network among his colleagues. A company layoff in 1970 scattered his advertising co-workers, but Curtis, who had retained his job, simply stayed in touch with them. His work relationships paid off when a former co-worker recruited Curtis for a position at Marsteller, an advertising agency in Chicago.
"I always wanted to be in the agency business, and I would have relocated anywhere to do it. It just happened that I got my break at Marsteller in Chicago," Curtis said.
Now one step closer to realizing his goal of running his own advertising agency, Curtis understood how important relationships were in the industry. He didn't even have to submit references or work samples for the Marsteller position; the general manager told him that the strength of his former colleague's referral was enough.
After seven successful years at Marsteller, Curtis received another offer from a former Monsanto colleague that he couldn't refuse. The offer was to join his colleague as an account supervisor for TracyLocke, an advertising agency in Dallas. Curtis took the position and eventually was promoted to vice president at the agency, where he worked with clients such as Texas Instruments, Imperial Sugar and Igloo coolers.
Building Client Relationships
After working his way up the agency ladder through his personal networking, Curtis was finally in a position to lead an advertising agency. After some time as senior vice president of Popejoy & Fischel, another advertising agency, Curtis moved up to executive vice president of Valentine Radford in Kansas City in 1984. He eventually became the agency's chairman and chief executive officer and oversaw the 2003 merger with Dallas-based Square One Advertising.
While Curtis developed relationships with colleagues to advance his career, he also applied that same commitment to relationships with clients. Curtis said that many of Valentine Radford's clients were the result of personal contact with people in the business who he considers close friends.
One such business friendship helped Curtis out in a time of need. While working for Valentine-Radford's client Hallmark, Curtis planned some live events to present a new cooperative advertising program to Hallmark store owners in two U.S. cities. The events were a success with a majority of store owners agreeing to participate in the advertising program. When Hallmark officials decided they wanted to launch similar events in dozens of markets nationwide, Curtis knew he had to find a feasible way to host the events; so he turned to a former client from his days at TracyLocke.
"I stayed in touch with some of my friends at Texas Instruments just out of friendship. I called them up with the Hallmark request and said, 'Okay, this may be crazy but our back is against the wall,'" Curtis said.
With the help of his friends at Texas Instruments, Curtis and Hallmark officials presented a live videoconference program to Hallmark store owners across the nation via a satellite feed from Chicago. Again, the event was a success, thanks to Curtis' enduring relationships.
"I had some reservations about this (the videoconference) because of my own ego," Curtis said, laughing at the memory. "I had this notion that the success of the program was due to my personal charm. But we had the exact same sign-up rate when I wasn't there."
Charm aside, Curtis learned that maintaining a simple, direct relationship with a client - or former client - can produce lasting benefits.
"A client will take some big chances with you if you're in the trenches with them for a long time," Curtis said. "You erase the line between the agency and the advertiser and they feel like you're a part of the same team. It's easier to be successful as an ad agency if you can create that level of trust with your client."
Recognizing His Roots
Now retired, Curtis' days working for such clients as Texas Instruments, Dr Pepper, Pizza Hut, the Dallas Cowboys, Sprint Yellow Pages, Dillard's and others are behind him. But he still maintains those relationships as he moves forward to other ventures, many of which serve the Kansas City community. Recently, his ingenuity in advertising led to voter approval of a $50-million bond issue to redevelop the Kansas City Zoo. During his tenure as president of the State Ballet of Missouri, the organization successfully eliminated its long-term debt and qualified for a $750,000 grant from the National Arts Stabilization Fund.
Curtis is now finishing a historical murder mystery novel that takes place in Dallas in the 1870s. He said he will continue to write in his retirement, because his love of words is what brought him to the advertising profession.
"I've always been a writer, and stringing together words is something I've always enjoyed. But it was hard for me to go from a 72-word format to a 40,000 word format," he said, alluding to the customary word count of a standard television spot.
Behind every word Curtis has written and every relationship he has forged has been his education from the Missouri School of Journalism. A Missouri Journalism degree is not only a strong force in the advertising world, Curtis said, but also the cornerstone for building relationships that benefit graduates throughout their careers.
"The School's been around for a long time, churning out lots of graduates - people who can write and think strategically and who have gone before me spreading the word that this is a good degree to have because they've been successful. It really has a mark of recognition," Curtis said.
Related
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Sept. 27, 2006: Eight Journalism Leaders to Receive Preeminent Journalism Award Eight outstanding journalists and a leading journalism organization will receive one of the industry's highest awards: the prestigious Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. The School has awarded the medal annually since 1930. Tom Brokaw, Christiane Amanpour of CNN, Sir Winston Churchill, Carol Loomis of Fortune magazine and Gordon Parks are among the distinguished journalists, advertising and public relations practitioners, business people, institutions and media organizations who have been recipients of this influential award. [More]
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