We’re Kansas City, Damn It.
October 25, 2011
Posted by Kevin Fullerton
“I really want to move to Kansas City, but think it might be smarter to move to a larger advertising market like St. Louis.”
“Actually,” I said, “Kansas City’s ad industry is almost four times that of St. Louis’ – and 20 times that of Denver’s.”
Dead silence.
And then, “Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
You can’t blame the guy (after all, he was calling me from Australia). Most people are under the same impression. Even here in Kansas City.
We, as a community, have been far too modest when it comes to telling our amazing and, to many, surprising story.
For starters, Kansas City is the 29th largest metro area, yet:
- we won more national ADDYs than all but two cities this year
- we are home to the nation’s largest collection of independent advertising agencies
- we have the fifth highest number of creative jobs in the United States
- we create more advertising per capita than all but a few cities
And there is more. Much more.
It’s time to tell our story. The AAF-KC is in the midst of putting together a report about the state of the Kansas City advertising industry. It includes facts, like above, and stories. We want to show Kansas City how important the advertising industry is to our city. And show the nation how important Kansas City is to advertising.
We’ll share the facts with you, so you can share them with others – clients, prospects, potential employees, competitors, your snotty college roommate, whomever. If we don’t tell them, who will?
This summer, I attended a meeting of AAF chapter presidents. One of the leaders said to me “You guys are on a roll. You could be the next Minneapolis or Austin.”
To which I responded: “No. We’re ****ing Kansas City.”
We don’t need to try to be anyone else. We have plenty to be proud of. We just need to give Kansas City advertising the voice it deserves.
Kevin Fullerton of Springboard Creative is president of the AAF-KC and is bat-**** crazy about the Kansas City advertising community. In fact, we can’t get him to shut up about it. But we’re okay with that.