Marketing Ceo

John Adams

John Adams is the CEO of the very successful marketing firm, the Martin Agency. The Agency's building is located in Richmond, Virginia, and its clients include big names such as Coca-Cola, GEICO, UPS, and Hanes. John Adams got in to the business with not much background in advertising or marketing. A big part of his job is to bring attention to the agency by making and keeping important connections with brands. John lectures on marketing and business issues throughout the United States.

The Martin Agency was behind one of the most well known advertising campaigns ever- the GEICO gecko. They first introduced the gecko in 1995. They found that the gecko helped people remember how to pronounce GEICO. They recently designed a humorous and memorable spot called "Tiny House" that spoofs reality TV marriages. The graphics, music, and theme of this commercial are highly comical, and the viewer connects with the absurdity of what reality TV has become.

The agency also designed a series of old-fashioned black and white ads for the Kennedy Library, featuring President Kennedy and his wife. One such ad, called "Reality TV", shows President Kennedy giving a speech in front of a camera. It says, "Reality TV, 1960." These ads are more serious in tone because of the subject matter and the lack of color.

One of the agency's most successful campaigns has been the UPS ("What can Brown do for you?") campaign. Started in 2002, the campaign aimed to change the company's association with the color brown to a positive one. For many years, leaders at UPS considered changing the color to blue or green to be more aesthetically pleasing to customers. The Martin Agency did research and found that people already had a positive connection to the color brown in relation to UPS and the shipping industry. It seemed that people had become so accustomed to the brown truck, brown package, and brown uniforms that they had formed a familiar trust with the company from the color. So, the ads were emphasizing the color to help brand attribution (people's ability to connect the commercial to the brand). Now, when people think of brown, they think of UPS. I thought this was very interesting that consumers felt a connection to a company through the use of color--especially one that doesn't necessarily stand out.

Because an important part of his agency