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Although not exactly yanking on their red ties, the principals at the LaGrave Klipfel Clarkson advertising agency have taken note recently of their relative low profile on the local advertising scene.
The advertising, marketing and public relations agency, headed by Ron Klipfel and Tom Clarkson, has mailed a series of humorous postcard messages announcing the hiring of six new staffers. The latest mailing, loosely based on the Trivial Pursuit board game, heralds some of the agency's more notable attributes.
The direct mail campaign has generated a lot of attention, said Klipfel, LKC's president. Included in that attention was a running commentary needling the LKC announcements by Des Moines radio personality Steve Gibbons. After deciding fair was fair, the LKC staff barged into Gibbons' studio one recent morning in farm costumes and presented him with a fudge confection shaped like a cow chip.
"We are not principally a retail firm," Klipfel said. The agency's total billings grew about 40 percent between last year and the previous year. Klipfel declined to provide any specific measures of his company's performance, and the agency is not listed in a recent trade publication's ranking of advertising agencies.
But in a Business Record survey conducted last year, LKC listed total billings of $1.5 million. The company's composite billing rate is set at $50 per hour, according to documents on file with the Iowa Office for Planning and Programming.
The agency was established in 1962 by Ed LaGrave, who retired 5 1/2 years ago. Klipfel joined the agency in 1973 as an account executive, became vice president and part owner in 1976. Klipfel assumed ownership of the agency and became its president in 1979.
Clarkson, who in 1976 served as the youngest mayor in the history of Hutchison, Kan., joined the firm in 1983 as vice president.
The company's accounts include The First...