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Profiles Of The Powerful: Advertising Exec Steve Grasse
After ten minutes with Ed Tettemer in the offices of the agency
he founded with partner, Steve Red, you begin to understand the
agency's passion for excellence. After an hour with Ed, you
begin to understand the intensity of his personal passion. You
begin to understand it but I have a feeling that, even after
days and days of exposure to him, you probably wouldn't get the
whole picture.
"Passion," the word, may seem descriptive of a complicated set
of feelings and opinions. Oddly, in thinking about Ed Tettemer's
passion for his agency and its clients, it seems rather simple.
It's just that he wants everything to be excellent: excellent
clients, excellent co-workers, excellent marketing solutions,
excellent creative executions, excellent everything.
"Where'd you go to college, Ed?" (A question most interviewers
ask without expecting surprises in the response.) "Never went to
college. Dropped out of high school and never looked back. Got
my college degree at the Elkman agency and my graduate degree at
Earle Palmer Brown."
Maybe it's best to start at the beginning. Ed was born and
raised and was "scared of the city," living in a rather
parochial environment. His Father was a sheriff in Bucks County
and his Mother worked as a secretary in the office of the small
township where they lived. Theirs was a simple life, a good life
in a small town atmosphere. He and his Dad fished a lot and they
ate what they caught. The vegetables on their table came from
their garden except for the mushrooms they harvested after heavy
rains. It seemed to be an uncomplicated existence far from the
pressures and tensions of traditional business, especially the
advertising business.
Dad was pretty much occupied with his job and the politics of
the community. Mom was more influential on the lives of Ed and
his older brother. Neither parent made strong suggestions about
what Ed and his brother did to prepare them for a career. They
were good people and Mom, especially, influenced the way Ed has
turned out. She was passionate about music and books. Ed is,
too. She preached, "Keep your eyes and ears open." Ed tries to
do that. All she wanted for her children was for them to be
happy and she didn't try to control their every move. Today, Ed
appreciates that.
His childhood was a happy one. He liked to fish. He played a lot
of baseball. He was a fairly typical American kid. Then, when he
was in high school, there was a dramatic change. It was called
the Viet Nam War. Consistent with how many people felt at the
time, his older brother took off for Canada to resist the war.
That had severe, negative impact on life in peaceful Bucks
County. Overnight, the Tettemer family became pariahs. Friends
deserted them. The community changed its view of them. Church
changed. Bad stuff!
Clearly, that situation had a powerful influence on Ed's psyche.
He dropped out of high school and spent over three years hitch
hiking all over the country. He found ways to make enough money
to do a lot of both savory and unsavory things. He was a
confused young man wandering the country during confusing times.
But he never lost touch with his Mother and Dad so, ultimately,
he went home to Bucks County and found a job working as a
glorified gopher for the Doylestown Intelligencer. He ran ads
back and forth from the paper to its small, retail advertisers.
He says, "I guess I was a junior account executive and didn't
know it." He delivered ad proofs, started helping small stores
with their ad copy and quickly learned how those small retailers
did their newspaper advertising.
During the year at the paper, he got to know and got to be
friendly with many of his customers. He realized that most of
them didn't have a lot of confidence in the help they were
getting from the paper. He believed that he could help them do
better advertising, advertising that actually worked and could
be tracked. He doesn't know why he believed that but he believed
it.
He remembered Pete's Place in a rather nostalgic way. Pete's
Place was a restaurant in Ottsville just north of Doylestown.
Their ad always ran on the same page with other restaurants. All
of the ads were the same size, were laid out in a conventional
rectangle and had many of the same messages: good food, low
prices, family atmosphere, etc. Pete's Place was pretty much the
same as a lot of places in that part of the country. Except for
one thing. Their logo and sign was a big wagon wheel.
After Ed convinced them to try to look different, their next ad
was designed to be round. It stood out nicely on the page with
all the rectangles. Someone once said that good advertising
should zig when the competition's zags. While Ed didn't refer to
that specific quote during our interview, much of what he said
about Pete's Place and about Red Tettemer's work seems to
support that "Zig if they Zag"idea. Ed reflects, "I think I made
six bucks on the work I did for Pete's."
The result? He worked with mostly small retailers for four years
and developed a keen understanding of how the
retailer thinks
and of what it takes to motivate consumers to respond to
advertising and promotion. In his own words, "I guess I didn't
really know what I was doing but I liked my clients, worked hard
and made a decent living."
Marriage followed as did a move into Center City where he, wife
Lyn and daughter Jessie still live. His first job in the city
was with the old Elkman Agency where he claims to have started
"Knowing nothing." His boss, Creative Director Jim Block,
promised to make him into a copy writer and further promised
that he would like doing it. Jim did what he promised and Ed did
like it. He had five productive years there but was always the
junior writer. He needed more.
Off to Becker/Kanter (now Panzano & Partners,) he soon learned
the logic of focusing on vertical businesses. He was a senior
creative director there working almost exclusively on shopping
center advertising and promotion. The "vertical" idea had great
influence on him in the early days of Red Tettemer when they
spent most of their effort with cable TV and entertainment
accounts.
He was recruited to Earle Palmer Brown where three factors
influenced his thinking and his behavior. First, Brian Meridith,
then the head of creative at EPB, showed him how important it
was to have a good idea at the beginning of creative execution.
"What's the idea? What's the idea?" was hammered into his
consciousness. Second, he formed a new perspective about
"vertical." While it's valuable and, at times, necessary, to
focus on specific industries, it's also valuable and stimulating
to have a broader base. Today's Red Tettemer is definitely broad
based and probably always will be.
The third factor was, perhaps, the most important. In early
1992, Ed just didn't know what to do with his career and his
growing, positive reputation. "I was disillusioned. I just
didn't believe in the people I worked for."
Fortunately, he was allowed to do some free lance work and
frequently collaborated with Steve Red with whom he had a
marvelous working relationship. He got a call from Steve about
working with him on several large assignments. His copy, Steve's
design skills and their ability to work together so effectively
brought out his assertion, "I had the time of my life working
with Steve."
It took Ed three years to convince Steve to join with him to
form Red Tettemer in 1996. They live by their mission statement,
"Energize our clients and their businesses." Ed is proud when he
reports that they try hard to make their clients' competitors
envious. They've followed those convictions while moving from
"vertical" client groups into more general accounts. Some of
their recent acquisitions are SEPTA, University of Pennsylvania
Health System and Hatfield Meats.
Neither Ed nor Steve has much tolerance for the traditional
approach used by many agencies. So, they've successfully created
a fun environment. Their office space is designed in creative
ways. The décor is imaginative but comfortable. There are
surprises everywhere: a conference room with no conference
table, eclectic art work all over the walls, small nooks and
crannies with interesting appointments and two balconies which
allow for panoramic views of the City. The physical experience
of the offices is sure to be pleasant and entertaining for every
age group: traditionalists as well as employees, whose average
age is under thirty.
What's the smartest business decision you ever made, Ed?
Instantly, the response is, "Being in partnership with Steve
Red. In fact, that may be my best life decision." How about your
worst decision? "I waited too long to expand from our "vertical"
focus. also, I think I've been too reclusive." (Maybe this
article will help, Ed.)
Fun for Ed? Trying to understand client needs and finding
solutions. Cooking. Reading. Joining the fire company near his
beach home. Remarking that he thinks he made his Mother and
Father proud. Red Tettemer's annual retreat. Family. Many things.
One more question, Ed. "What would you do with a couple of
wishes?"
Thoughtfully, he responds in a way that further demonstrates his
passion. He says that he'd like to keep in closer touch with all
of his employees, that he wishes he could reenergize the agency
more frequently and that he'd like to take time to celebrate
their good fortune more frequently.
If life is dull, if you need a shot of passion in your life, if
you'd enjoy being stimulated by the innards of an ad agency, if
you respond to another person's motivation and, yes, passion,
visit Red Tettemer. While you're there, try to spend a few
minutes with Ed. As his Mother taught him, "Keep your eyes and
ears open." You'll enjoy the visit.
About the author:
Allan Kalish founded, managed and sold Kalish & Rice, one of
Philadelphia's largest ad agencies. He is currently chairman of
Trichys, providers of intranet (http://www.trichys.com) and
extranet solutions for online collaboration and online document
sharing
(http://www.trichys.com/document-sharing/document-sharing.vm).
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