Ultimately, they decided to go with their own names to create Goldfarb Weber Creative Media, because "the fact of the matter is that 100 percent of our clients know me and Tony [Weber] personally," Ron Goldfarb said.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - You may not know Tony Weber or Ron Goldfarb, but chances are you've already spotted their award-winning work. Friday, the two are taking a major step toward becoming even better known, as they rebrand their company from Glazen Creative Studios into Goldfarb Weber Creative Media.
"We've been thinking about it for two years," Weber said. "We have a lot of brand equity in Glazen Creative, but Alan [Glazen] hasn't been involved in the company for the past 10 years."
The name "Goldfarb Weber Creative Media" also signals the 42-year-old company's migration from an advertising agency into one that specializes in cutting-edge video production and digital filmmaking.
Among the names they considered and discarded were: True North (also the name of a snack line), Incite Creative (a play on the word "insight"), and Amplify (the same name as the speaker series sponsored by CBC Magazine).
Ultimately, they decided to go with their own names, because "the fact of the matter is that 100 percent of our clients know me and Tony personally," Goldfarb said. They answer their own phones, attend their clients' meetings and events to better know them, and have a hand in everything the company produces.
When asked if the two arm-wrestled over whose surname would come first, Weber chuckled. "It was purely alphabetical," he said.
Their client roster ranges from the Greater Cleveland Partnership and Positively Cleveland to The Gathering Place and The Cleveland Museum of Art. Business has been so brisk that they expect to add two or three more positions to their staff of 12, primarily in video editing.
Their outlook, like the rousing soundtracks laid beneath their helicopter tours of Northeast Ohio landmarks, is unapologetically upbeat and pro-Cleveland.
Their video highlighting Cleveland as host city for the 2014 Gay Games debuted regionally during the opening ceremonies of the recent Winter Olympics in Sochi. "When that spot ran, the Gay Games website got 15,000 hits in the first 24 hours," as well as spikes in its Facebook fans, Twitter followers and Gay Game volunteer sign-ups, Weber said.
"We're behind the scenes," Goldfarb said. "We make the client's message our message."
Alan Glazen, who founded the agency as Glazen Advertising in 1972, said he fully supports the partners and their new name. "I'm very happy for them," he said. A self-described "recovering ad man," Glazen has gone on to open and invest in restaurants and taverns and is heading a social media campaign trying to block the county's "sin tax."
"With my main career behind me, I'm enjoying taking those skills to whole new industries and getting a few more careers under my belt," Glazen explains on his LinkedIn profile.
Glazen had already started expanding the company's video capacity when he hired Goldfarb in 1996. Weber came on board in 1998, and Goldfarb and Weber bought the company from Glazen in 2009.
He said the two have carved out more success as digital filmmakers than he ever envisioned, and that in recent years, he felt guilty getting credit for the great work they had done.
Their fans include Chris Connor, chairman and chief executive of Sherwin-Williams Co., who says they are his "go-to" visual team.
"Sherwin-Williams has used 'the artists formerly known as Glazen Creative' frequently to help us produce powerful, impactful video messaging to inspire employees, engage customers and communicate with a wide range of interested stakeholders," he said. "For the big important corporate imaging projects, Goldfarb Weber is always our first choice."
"We applaud the excellent work of Ron Goldfarb, Tony Weber and their talented team and wish them great success as they continue to add value to Cleveland's most important organizations under their new name of Goldfarb Weber Creative Media," he added.
View full sizeThe video Goldfarb Weber Creative Media made to promote the 2014 Gay Games coming to Cleveland includes a brief cameo by Chief Executive Tony Weber."The work defines the name"
Cleveland's advertising industry, which dates back to the Cleveland Advertising Club in 1901, is full of legacy agencies named after the legends who started them.
"You figure if a person put his name on the company, he intends to stand behind what it produces," said David Stashower, retired chairman and chief executive of Liggett Stashower Inc., once one of Cleveland's largest advertising agencies. "The problem with that, of course, is that very rarely does a single person have the complete influence over a company's ideas that it once implied."
"What it comes down to is that the name doesn't define the work; the work defines the name," he said. "That really is what people are talking about when they say 'I'm interested in Wyse' or 'I want to work for Brokaw.' You're not interested in the people, you're interested in the net result of the work they're doing."
"It's been a long time since Alan Glazen has had anything to do with the company that bears his name, and it is now really a generation past him," Stashower said. "It's true that he established the kind of products that Glazen Creative Studios could be relied on to put out, but we're now at a point where people no longer ask, 'Is Alan still there?' They ask: "Who is Alan Glazen?"
"His legacy is that he built a business that is successful doing what he wanted to do and did it very well, and now one or two generations later, they're still doing what they like to do," he added.
Stashower applauded Weber and Goldfarb's decision to use their own names instead of trying to come up something clever or kitschy. When he attended the American Advertising Federation - Cleveland ADDY Awards on Feb. 20, "some of the companies I not only didn't recognize, but I don't know what they do," he said. "When you have the name of the owners [on the company], then you may not know the people, but you know that there's somebody minding the store."
"I'll take you there"
Todd Mesek, vice president of marketing and communications for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, said of the Goldfarb and Weber: "We recommend them all the time."
He said the agency has produced promotional videos as well as "story-behind-the-story" videos for its artists and exhibits, including the one at the entrance explaining the history of the Rock Hall in Cleveland. "Video production is their forte, it's what they do best," he said.
Mesek recalled one video they created for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York that won raves, helped with fundraising, and spurred a measurable spike in visitors to Cleveland from the Big Apple. "The really cool thing about it is that it took lyrics from iconic rock songs like 'I'll take you there' and 'I love rock and roll' to tell them to visit Cleveland," he said.
He said the two worked on it for far longer than they were paid to, and kept editing it after it was released, because they wanted the video and the audio to mesh perfectly. "They did it because it was going to help the community," he said, adding, "It's just an exquisite piece."
Videos courtesy of Goldfarb Weber Creative Media.