The Newport Beach office of Philadelphia-based advertising agency 160over90 has become a prime contributor to its parent’s performance since it decided to take a chance on Orange County three years ago.
The shop won an agency-of-record assignment for UCLA out of 160over90’s headquarters in 2011, and decided to open an office in California to serve the account.
It was looking for some elbow room when it picked Newport Beach over Los Angeles.
“We saw there is a lot of business potential out here on the West Coast, in Orange County especially, which is one of the reasons why we moved here and not to L.A.,” said Tammo Walter, the agency’s chief creative officer and principal. The saturation of agencies is way lower here.”
The decision paid off—160over90 has built a vibrant niche in the higher education sector and steadily added consumer products and other accounts.
The Newport Beach outpost accounted for $8 million in billings last year, nearly a third of the total for its parent, which also has an office in Gainesville, Fla. The OC office, which now employs 26, is on track to top about $9.3 million in billings for 2014, according to Walter.
160over90’s education accounts now includes several West Coast schools: California State University-Long Beach, California State University-Northridge, Seattle University, and the University of Oregon.
International
More recently it went international, winning an account for Centro, a Mexico City-based college of art, design, film and fashion, and the University of Guadalajara’s Medical School (Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara).
160over90 started working on those accounts this spring, developing branding, advertising and digital marketing.
“Centro was looking at recruiting national as well as U.S. students,” Walter said. “Given the proximity and size of the Latino population in this country, it makes sense, especially if you talk about something like design and film, which is less country-dependent than, let’s say, compared to law.”
The agency also took on assignment work in March for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, helping the baseball franchise transform its former press box into a premium seating section dubbed “Halo,” said Megan Pomplas, the agency’s director of client services. 160over90 built Halo’s brand identity, creating a logo, in-stadium signage, collateral marketing materials, and print and digital ads.
Skyworks
Among the agency’s biggest accounts is Skyworks Solutions Inc., a Woburn, Mass-based manufacturer of analog semiconductors that has a market value of about $10.1 billion. It keeps its sales and marketing team in Irvine, along with its design center and application engineering support.
“We did a branding process with them, really looking at who they are as a company, and their messaging,” Walter said. “They have not done much marketing in the past, and they are a pretty big company.”
Consumer Sector
The agency considers the accounts for Skyworks and the Angels part of what it calls the “consumer sector” of its account roster, which also includes Golden State Cider in Sebastopol; Riordan, Lewis & Haden Equity Partners in Los Angles and Irvine; and Portland, Ore.-based Nike Inc.’s tennis division.
“We started [work for] Nike … about four years ago, before the (Newport Beach) office was open, and we took the account with us,” Walter said. “It’s been a really good relationship.”
Portland-based Wieden+Kennedy is the footwear and apparel company’s agency of record, but there is a lot of work remaining for agencies like 160over90.
Walter’s team produces tennis-related advertising materials for Nike’s Visual Center, which are used for print or digital ads, billboards or merchandise, among others.
“It’s like a toolbox that Nike hands out to their different regions and says, ‘Hey, for this particular season, these are assets that you can use.’ Some of it was used at the U.S. Open in New York, but it could also be on a bus shelter.”
160over90’s latest campaign for UCLA will be geared for TV, radio and print publications.
It’s an update on the inaugural “We, the Optimists” campaign the agency created in 2012, shortly after its arrival in OC.
“The original ‘Optimists’ campaign…featured the accomplishments of notable alumni like Jackie Robinson, Francis Ford Coppola, Anna Lee Fischer, James Dean—all game-changers in their respective fields who shared a … belief in the power of optimism,” Walter said. “This latest iteration of the brand narrative captures that same, palpable sense of optimism, but now tells it through the lens of the UCLA campus and community as a collective.”
