Recently, owner Kyle Doran had the opportunity to be a guest speaker at the National Sales and Advisory Committee Meeting for TVB.

TVB is the not-for-profit trade association representing America’s $21 billion local broadcast television industry. He was invited as a guest of R&A’s digital partner, NextStar Media, which processes all of our digital media for our clients at a negotiated rate that we pass onto our clients.

NextStar serves on the committee as well as a digital subcommittee. Last week, the subcommittee was asked to discuss how TV and digital can complement each other rather than take away from each other. NextStar felt that with the campaigns and concepts R&A is developing for our clients, we could share the thought process behind our strategies and showcase successful case studies with the group.

Although we will be sharing our strategies and experiences with you over the coming months, today we want to focus on Kyle’s experience as a guest speaker for TVB.

Kyle says, “As I was talking in front of 80 TV executives from all of the major broadcast groups throughout the country, I got to experience a different point of view with them. Usually, in the onboarding process for our clients, we conduct media days and have them present to us. In this case, I was able to present to them.”

The Question…

Kyle goes on to share how he enjoyed talking about the work R&A does every day to brainstorm new ways of integrating medias and bring campaigns to life. Representatives from the broadcast groups were interested in learning more about R&A’s approach to marketing and working as an agency, and one VP of Digital from a large TV group asked Kyle, “I am really impressed with your model. Do you think that this model can be replicated in other verticals, besides furniture, with the same laser focus?”

Even beyond the scope of looking at specific tactics R&A uses or diving into what percentages we spend on digital, TV, and other medias, this VP was asking if R&A’s entire business model could be applied to an industry other than furniture retail.

The Answer…

After reflecting on the question, Kyle says that he answered truthfully and from the heart:

“In theory and practical application yes, it can be. But, in practice it cannot. What cannot be replicated is that R&A loves Furniture retailers. More specifically we love the furniture retailers that we work with every day. We love the sacrifices they make to provide for their employees, customers and communities. We love that most of them are self-made, pull-it-up-by-their-bootstraps entrepreneurs that know the more you put in the more you get out. We love that they live in a world where they can trust a company that lives several states away to work their butts off to give them a real chance at success. We love that they share successes and also their failures with us. We love that they view us more as partners than vendors.”

R&A Marketing has endured recessions, generational transfer, constantly changing medias and the most competitive landscape in retail history. Yet R&A continues to work exclusively with furniture retailers and find success for the small business owners in America.

At the beginning of 2019, R&A set a challenge for itself to define our WHY. Why does a client hire R&A? Why do employees work at R&A? Why does R&A continue to operate as a full-service agency? Why the furniture retail business?

Although there are many, many answers to these questions, Kyle’s experience at TVB helped him define his personal WHY, and the WHY that is the foundation upon which R&A was built:

“Sharing all of your stories, your wins, your strategies to 80 TV executives made me realize that we love furniture retail. More specifically, I love furniture retail. I have loved it since I went along with my Dad on business trips as a 5-year-old, helped open up our office in 1996 to a roaring toast from furniture retailers, and read the pipeline that was sent to my dorm room in college once a month. My WHY is ensuring that we save the independently owned furniture retailer in this country one market at a time. R&A was built on all of the things we love about this industry. Our mission is to make sure we continue to lead this industry forward.”

Even though our clients appreciate R&A for different reasons, be it our strategies, the creative we produce, or the knowledge we bring about the industry as a whole, they all benefit from the fact that every person at R&A is doing what they love. That is not something that can be easily replicated and applied to other verticals.

So from Kyle and R&A Marketing, thank you for your business and your partnership.

The WHY and the need are different for every retailer. But the one thing that binds us together is the common goal of success. Discover WHY furniture retailers hire R&A to “take you from where you are, to where you want to go”.