Ask the folks at Vans Inc. in Cypress about Rauxa, and they’ll likely say it’s a tech company developing their “Customs” website for shoppers to personalize the classic slip-on shoe.
Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc. considers it a nimble ad shop in Costa Mesa that created and mailed its holiday gift guide in under two weeks when others said it was impossible.
The rest of America sees it as the largest female-owned, independent advertising agency by revenue, staffing levels and capitalized billings.
Rauxa’s multiple identities are a testament to its continued transformation to support growth since Jill Gwaltney founded it in 1999 as a direct marketing shop.
“Our mission is to be the very best agency in our space,” said Chief Strategy Officer Ian Baer. “We are doing it through diversification of services, diversification of clients, and adding to our talent base.”
The agency, which took in $56 million in revenue last year, hired nearly 100 people in the past 12 months, bringing its staff to about 230. The hires included several leadership roles—Executive Creative Director John Avery, Chief Creative Officer Kate Daggett, and Laurel Rossi, the agency’s first chief marketing officer.
It’s also looking for someone to fill its brand-new vice president of new business position; the successful applicant is expected to contribute $5 million to $10 million in new business per year.
Added Accounts
The increased headcount supports expanded workload from existing clients, including Gap Inc.’s credit card group; Blue Shield of California; Delta Dental; and Verizon, which consolidated its fiber-optic communications network FiOS account with Rauxa, along with connected-vehicle services Telematics and mobile video network Go90. Alaska Airlines put its frequent flier mileage program in Rauxa’s hands late last year, and the agency is working on “data-driven guest engagement programs, still very much under wraps,” for TGI Friday’s Inc., Baer said.
Rauxa’s leadership also hopes to expand work with Allergan PLC. It recently worked on the Dublin-based drugmaker’s loyalty program for its facial aesthetics line, Brilliant Distinctions, implementing an email program that increased male registrations for cosmetic treatments, including Irvine-centered Botox.
Its latest win was a social media agency-of-record assignment for the Keep America Beautiful nonprofit organization in Stamford, Conn. It’s charged with “creating social media content, managing social media platforms, and building and managing social media community, to get the word out all over America about the need to recycle.”
New Territories
Rauxa, which has offices in Seattle, New York, San Francisco and Atlanta, also is looking at social content distribution and data analytics shops as potential acquisition targets, said President and Chief Executive Gina Alshuler, who joined the ad shop in 2001 and took over from Gwaltney last year.
“This is a point you’re either investing in growth or thinking about giving up that independence,” Baer said. “We are investing in growth … We want to build out certain capabilities to continue to go head to head with much larger agencies, including media planning, buying, channel strategy, social media, research.”
Gwaltney set a precedent with the 2012 acquisition of a former contractor, Chicago-based web design and development firm ThoughtMatrix. It was a “bold move into the technology space, rather than getting there project by project,” Baer said. “We have clients who know us primarily as their technology partner, and the fact that we are an agency is secondary to them.”
Vans, which has in-house agency Global Creative, had “a vision” about enabling customers to personalize its products “but technologically didn’t know how to make it happen,” he said.
Rauxa picked up the assignment after a chance meeting at a trade conference in Austin with Greg Pulsifer, vice president of digital development at VF Corp., the parent company of the apparel and footwear brand. It developed the Customs website, which is now going through a second iteration and soon will allow consumers to upload their own artwork and graphics, so “if you want your face tiled all over your sneakers, you can do that,” Baer said. “It’s been about a year of labor of love.”
The agency also launched “branded content shop” Cats on the Roof in Culver City that’s run by Gwaltney’s son, Cooper. It develops fan-focused videos, “nimble stuff you can get online in a week with four and five production figures, not six- and seven-figure production budgets,” Baer said.
It recently worked with 20th Century Fox on video content for “Hidden Figures,” an upcoming film about African-American physicist Katherine Johnson, who worked on the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon, for die-hard fans to spread the word about the movie.
Rauxa, which in Catalan means “crazy with a redeeming touch of magic,” ranked fifth on the Business Journal’s 2016 list of OC-based ad agencies.
