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 Advertising giant Burnett has opened shop in Austin market By: Daryl Janes One arm of a nearly $7 billion advertising gorilla is sticking its fingers in the Austin tech pie. Chicago based TFA/Leo Burnett Technology Group has opened an Austin office to local high-tech clients, including Motorola. The Group is a separate operating unit of the Leo Burnett Co., a 64 year old Chicago based public relations and marketing company with 86 full-service offices in 75 countries. The parent company’s global billings for 1998 were $6.6 billion. The technology group had 1998 billings of more than $107 million. Scott Murray, president of the group’s Austin office, says the local office will serve not only the industry giants like Motorola, but also software, venture capital and start-ups. Murray says, Austin’s hot tech market draws Burnett. "We’ve seen significant growth in the Southwest, and Austin is really the epicenter of the technology growth," he says. "It just made sense for us to be here. We have a presence in Dallas, but you have a much higher concentration of semiconductor and software in Austin." Sean Bisceglia, TFA/Leo Burnett Technology Group chief executive officer says the company will still maintain a presence in Dallas, but there is "more potential in Austin." The new office starts off with 12 people, but Murray says he expects it to grow to 22 to 24 people by year’s end. Some were brought from Chicago headquarters, but he says the others were hired locally "because there is a lot of talent here." Bisceglia says the University of Texas is part of the attraction in Austin. "One of things we found in our other offices in Boston and Chicago is they’re around major universities," Bisceglia says, citing MIT in Boston and the University of Illinois in Chicago. "The University of Texas, together with mainstay technology companies such as Motorola and Dell, and a lot of venture capital firms … are potential clients." Murray has been in Austin for about a month and says the company has joined the Austin Software Council and talked to potential local clients. He says there are "some big names" but won’t say who until they are signed. Bisceglia says the group is not just mining for large companies and noted two recent tech initial public offerings, PcOrder and Vignette, as examples of the "exciting" opportunities in Austin. "They are not billion-dollar companies, but they generate a lot of value in the market," Bisceglia says. "You see a lot of those companies around here; they are exciting to be around…. Their advertising budgets are growing at a much faster pace than the larger technology firms." TFA/Leo Burnett will face some established competition in Austin. SicolaMartin, also a business-to-business tech marketing firm, was ranked No. 2 on the Austin Business Journal list of top advertising agencies, 1997 gross billings of $56 million. Steve Martin, SicolMartin principal, says TFA/Burnett’s arrival in Austin is a sign of the "vibrant" market here. "I think we’ll continue to see companies coming in am looking at Austin," Martin says. "If you look back at the past five years, it’s just a different world (for local business-to-business marketing)." The TFA/Leo Burnett Technology Group is the result of Burnett acquiring Chicago-based TFA Communications in 1998. TFA – short for "total focus approach" – was a fast growing business-to-business marketing firm with billings of more than $68 million in 1997. That volume increased 56 percent, to $107 million, for 1998. The group is operating out of 15,000 square feet on the sixth floor of 816 Congress Ave. The grand opening is set for April 15. Daryl Jane is a staff writer with the Austin Business Journal, an affiliated publication. |
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