Spencer Advertising is a full-service advertising agency that serves a mix of local, regional and national clients while also functioning as Clipper Magazine in-house agency. We thought to share with you this article from LancatserOnline.com about one of Spencer’s newest projects.
Local firm scores on Yankees turf
Mountville firm is cultivating newest baseball brand
Spencer Advertising & Marketing is breaking new ground with its latest client.
Literally.
The Mountville advertising agency has experience promoting lawn and garden products, as well as baseball, said Kevin Tufarolo, vice president and creative director.
But the Yankees Sod, Yankees Grass account, which includes advertising and package design, is in a field all its own, and the new products started attracting media attention even before they went on sale last week.
“On March 22, I had to call Kevin and tell him, ‘Your box is on the front page of The New York Times,’ ” said David Andres, CEO of Stadium Associates, which holds the license from Major League Baseball for the two Yankees products.
“It’s the first time grass has ever been provided a special license,” Andres said.
Yankees Grass Seed, packaging designed by Spencer Advertising
Sod and seed are also being carried at 25 Home Depot stores in the New York area and will soon be on sale in a number of other outlets.
The idea grew out of the Yankees’ efforts to ensure there would be enough sod on the bench if the starting lineup for the new stadium didn’t take root.
The club had asked DeLea Sod Farms, the Long Island company that had been supplying it with sod for years, to set aside some extra acreage of sod at its southern New Jersey farm just in case. The sod has to grow about 18 months before it’s transplanted.
When the construction company that built the new stadium asked DeLea if it could buy some of the seed to distribute as souvenirs to its employees, it planted an idea.
“I said, ‘We ought to get a trademark,’ ” said Andres, who was then DeLea’s vice president of business development.
Now, fans will be able to buy some of the Yankees’ extra sod as well as the seed used to grow it.
Stadium Associates was founded by Andres and other DeLea company officials, including owner Rick DeLea, for just that purpose.
The process started back in November when the new field was sodded. The request for licensing was submitted to Major League Baseball in mid-December, and the license was granted at the beginning of 2009, Andres said.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” Tufarolo said. “It’s moved faster than anything I’ve ever seen before.”
A Yankees connection
With the sod in place and a license in the works, Andres still needed to find an agency that could design the packaging and promote the new products.
“I am a firm believer that the fastest way to do anything is networking,” Andres said.
Andres lived in Quarryville until age 7 and returns for regular visits to Lancaster County. One of people he turned to for suggestions was Jim Guerin, of jgenvironmental in Lancaster, who has been a close friend for several years.
“He said, ‘You should talk to Kevin Tufarolo,’ ” Andres said.
It turns out Tufarolo and Andres already knew one another from attending Guerin’s annual Super Bowl poker party. But Andres hadn’t known that Tufarolo was in advertising and an avid Yankees fan.
“It’s ironic how people around you can turn out to be significant business relationships,” Andres said.
The Spencer agency also turned out to be a good fit. It had done work for the Barnstormers baseball team and for Novelty Manufacturing, a Lancaster company that makes lawn and garden products, as well as work for other companies in both those sectors.
The 20-person agency was started in 1989 by Ian Ruzow of Clipper Magazine and still operates out of Clipper’s building. About 15 years ago, it became an autonomous, stand-alone agency, Tufarolo said, and little more than five years ago both the agency and Clipper Magazine were purchased by Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today.
“We’re small and nimble, which large agencies aren’t,” said Donna Fulmer, a Spencer account executive. But the agency still has the resources of Gannett to back it up when needed, she said.
Spencer has a diverse account roster that includes such disparate companies as Armstrong World Industries, Giant Foods and the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau.
“We’re a second-tier agency for a lot of national companies,” Tufarolo said. “We’re a very creative shop, and we’re affordable. … They realize they can get more bang for the buck.”
Still, Spencer had to compete for the project with two other advertising agencies, one in Manhattan and another in St. Louis, Andres said.
“Spencer Advertising stood out against the others in quality, performance and ability,” he said.
A fan’s fervor
Tufarolo’s own enthusiasm for baseball and for the Yankees helped clinch the deal.
Kevin Tufarolo, Creative Director - Photo by Blaine T. Shahan/Sunday News
“I have an uncle who’s 87 years old and lives in Arizona who played for the Yankees’ farm league for five or six years,” Tufarolo said, describing Harold Plowman, a shortstop who grew up in York.
To work with products sold and branded with the Yankees is the icing on the cake for a career spent advertising, packaging and branding everything from screws to cogs, Tufarolo said.
But he and Fulmer also said they think there will be more to it than just Yankees Sod, that the idea will take flight with other teams in the exploding field of sports marketing.
“There’s that emotional connection that a fan has to his home team, his home field,” Tufarolo said. “I’ve felt that.”
“We think this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Fulmer added. “It will be a pretty exciting ride to see what will happen.”
StadiumAssociates.com was also designed by Spencer Advertising
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