Alpha Group ad agency closing down

A pillar of the Asheville advertising community is toppling, a victim of key personnel losses and the slow real estate market, according to its chief executive.

[Jake]

If you were an unemployed drop of water, where would you want to land?

[LOKEL]

It has been a slow death.

[Water]

Jake wrote:

If you were an unemployed drop of water, where would you want to land?

On a leaf in a tree. Why do you ask?

[Avl Tao]

Waitaminut. Didn't the Asheville Chamber of Commerce and Parsecs Financial recently tell us a few weeks ago that Asheville is ‘immune’ to the national - or global - downturn? Did they not announce that all those news stories of a bad economy simply don’t apply here?
Please send the URL of that story to Mr. Pat Thompson along with instructions to keep his shop open and keep incurring payroll, rent, overhead, and other expenses. He'll get his business revenues up soon enuff cuz all he has to do is forward the URL to current and potential ad clients, and voila, they'll start giving him business. And if these clients don't have enuff revenues to afford Mr. Thompson's ad rates, well all they have to do is forward the Chamber’s utterances to their own clients & customers and they'll start seeing more revenues too.
After all, if the Chamber and Tveidt and Parsecs said it, it must be true.
Now...where is that gilded jug with the spiked kool-aid that the Chamber, Mr. Tveidt, and Parsecs were swigging from? We need to pass that around town too.

[Lao Tzu]

the weirdness of weirdos, the sanity of the sane, the bile of the bitter folks, and the beauty of the dreamers

Chuang Tzu, is that you, you silly old fool, long time no see.

[Get the scoop]

Avl Tao wrote:

Waitaminut. Didn't the Asheville Chamber of Commerce and Parsecs Financial recently tell us a few weeks ago that Asheville is ‘immune’ to the national - or global - downturn? Did they not announce that all those news stories of a bad economy simply don’t apply here?
Please send the URL of that story to Mr. Pat Thompson along with instructions to keep his shop open and keep incurring payroll, rent, overhead, and other expenses. He'll get his business revenues up soon enuff cuz all he has to do is forward the URL to current and potential ad clients, and voila, they'll start giving him business. And if these clients don't have enuff revenues to afford Mr. Thompson's ad rates, well all they have to do is forward the Chamber’s utterances to their own clients & customers and they'll start seeing more revenues too.
After all, if the Chamber and Tveidt and Parsecs said it, it must be true.
Now...where is that gilded jug with the spiked kool-aid that the Chamber, Mr. Tveidt, and Parsecs were swigging from? We need to pass that around town too.

The economy really didn't have that much to do with them shutting down, contrary to what they want you to believe.

[Tom C]

I worked with the Alpha Group as contract labor starting around 1985 back when Price/McNabb was still in the area. They did a lot of good work. Hate to see any longtime company here hit the road. But once Craig, I think, took the job at the GPI that was really the beginning of the loss of clients overall and slow slide to shutting the doors.

[Yankee Sniper]

Sounds like their business plan didn't identify risk of a down market very well. Solid management and innovative leadership is what gets companies through hard times and down markets, but these guys stuck with a stale business plan and now they're shutting down.

If you don't have an innovative product, process, or service, then you must compensate with innovative leadership. The owners stayed involved for far too long, should have stepped down and appointed a leader with a fresh perspective, free of paradigm paralysis.

[Two cents]

As an ex-employee who loved the company and had high hopes for it, the reality is that there WAS no business plan. An agency has to be prepared at a moment's notice to think creatively and proactively when there's a down-turn in the economy. New business should be a constant priority, and the reality is that Alpha rested on its laurels and the reputations of some of its largest clients, assuming that alone would pull them through. But the agency itself resisted change...didn't understand or invest in technology or its staff, and ultimately shot themselves in the foot. What Alpha needed was an experienced agency bulldog who knew the importance of putting the agency and its employees and overall goals first. When you have a well-vetted strategy for adversity, you have a much better chance of weathering the storm. The employees were smart. Not seeing any true leadership of strategy for growth, they slowly started looking elsewhere for their livelihoods.

The agency closed down because the hands of internal management were tired for years, making them unable to grow the business and the skills of their staff. Their product became, while still useful, antiquated in the bigger advertising picture. And that's the ultimate failure of top management to actively participate and reinvest in the company and staff each year. It's the quickest way to fail and it's a huge shame. Alpha could have been a relative giant with the right leadership, but we'll never know now.

[yep]

Two cents wrote:

As an ex-employee who loved the company and had high hopes for it, the reality is that there WAS no business plan. An agency has to be prepared at a moment's notice to think creatively and proactively when there's a down-turn in the economy. New business should be a constant priority, and the reality is that Alpha rested on its laurels and the reputations of some of its largest clients, assuming that alone would pull them through. But the agency itself resisted change...didn't understand or invest in technology or its staff, and ultimately shot themselves in the foot. What Alpha needed was an experienced agency bulldog who knew the importance of putting the agency and its employees and overall goals first. When you have a well-vetted strategy for adversity, you have a much better chance of weathering the storm. The employees were smart. Not seeing any true leadership of strategy for growth, they slowly started looking elsewhere for their livelihoods.
The agency closed down because the hands of internal management were tired for years, making them unable to grow the business and the skills of their staff. Their product became, while still useful, antiquated in the bigger advertising picture. And that's the ultimate failure of top management to actively participate and reinvest in the company and staff each year. It's the quickest way to fail and it's a huge shame. Alpha could have been a relative giant with the right leadership, but we'll never know now.

lotta words -but reality, they don`t give a chit about you or anybody except the money . you have been used. sorry.

[black dawg]

"they don`t give a chit about you or anybody except the money."

that is ALWAYS the case with an ad agency, they talk about creative(s) mattering, but an AE's backbone and balls will dissolve in a skinny minute the moment a client says "boo."

"boo"

[Jessica]

I worked for the Alpha Group as a Media Buyer from 2000 until 2002 and I just returned to Asheville this Labor Day weekend to visit the city where I used to live...I drove by the old office on Coxe Ave. and saw that it was closed, but thought they must have just moved! I'm heartbroken to see they closed down. Although I was very ready to leave The Alpha Group 7 years ago and move on, I only have wonderful memories of the agency and the people I worked with. I truly hope none of the old crew are suffering as a result of this sad event.