Updating the story: The evolution of successful construction industry marketing

The reactone.com team in St Louis, MO, referenced in the previous blog entry left The Lawrence Group to start their own company, Atomic Dust. They also continued with their experience, knowledge and connections with the construction industry; as an example designing an ad series in the local Business Journal for Kozeny Wagner, a full service general contractor, construction manager and design builder.

Here is the response to my email to the Lawrence Group regarding yesterday's posting and question about reactone.com.

I know Verne Harnish’s work. I attended two of his sessions about 8 or 9 years ago, with our CEO, when I was the director of marketing here (I’ve since become more focused on communications, i.e., public relations and advertising). I need to track down the book you’re sighting. I’d be interested in the copyright date on the one you’ve got, and whether or not he has a more current revision out there. The information you have on us is out of date.

Here’s an update (and thanks for your interest):

ReactOne was a media company that we developed in house specifically, as you said, for client focused Web sites that were more vanguard almost a decade ago.

Technology changes quickly, and the ReactOne team was (and still is) a really cutting edge group of young media types, who were hungry to let their ponies run. They left here amicably as a group (the same way they came in) and established a company called Atomic Dust. They are thriving in a downtown St. Louis location, and of course, everyone who knew and worked with them here is thrilled for their success.

http://www.atomicdust.com/ I would guess, then, that the name ReactOne and the Web site of that name was sold to someone else several years ago—but that’s just my guess. I’m copying James Dixson, one of Atomic Dust’s founders, on this reply. He would actually be an excellent resource for your blog on all this.

I hope that answers your questions. Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with. I will be glad to add you to our media distribution list.

Here’s my contact info, attached.

Best regards,
Donna J Gamache, Director of Communications, Lawrence Group

I have sent another follow-up email to Verne Harnish's organization and look forward to hearing from Atomic Dust, who may, indeed, provide worthwhile resources for construction marketing. A visit to their website uncovers some wonderfully creative construction advertising materials designed for their local market. I expect (after receiving their permission of course), you may find value in adapting this material to your own market.

Here is the note from Atomic Dust's web page describing the Kozeny Wagner campaign, where you can also see some additional print ad examples.

Construction company Kozeny Wagner approached us with the task of creating a series of ads that would run in the St. Louis Business Journal. A majority of the ads in the Business Journal are underwhelming and Kozeny Wagner really wanted to stand out. The campaign was to achieve several goals including increasing awareness of the company, showing that they are proud of their work and, through the visuals, showing a broad range of what they do. As a result we used humor, which is not often found in Business Journal ads and clean, open visuals that would draw the viewer in. The first three of the campaign are shown here, with more to follow.