Woman's Drive Builds Agency
8/15/97
Triangle Business Journal, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC)

By Suzy Barile

Cary - To many in Cary, Media Research Planning & Placement president Sheila Hale Ogle is the woman who lives in the big pink house on Academy Street: That's the Guess-Ogle House circa 1830, the home she and her husband, Carroll, bought and renovated several years ago.

They laid new wood floors where old ones had rotted, knocked down walls and added others, and turned a captain's walk into their grandchildren's playroom-all while friends chuckled at their foolishness. Today, the house is a Downtown Cary landmark, and featured on the cover of Thomas Byrd's "Around and About Cary."

Taking on challenges

Similar skepticism accompanied Ogle's retreat from the corporate world 10 years ago, when she realized she'd reached her peak at Howard, Merrell & Partners advertising agency in Raleigh.

"I had a great job, great hours and benefits," she said of the 20 years she spent with North Carolina's oldest full-service advertising firm in North Carolina. "But it just wasn't a career challenge anymore. I just wanted more."

Ogle withdrew enough money from her profit-sharing to last a year in case she was without an income, and debated the possibilities. "I had lots of interests," she said. "And when you stay in one field that long, you know a lot of people.

The end result was a decision to concentrate on media alone. So in 1987, MRPP Inc., a full-service media agency, was born. While she won't disclose specifics, Ogle said her agency billings have rocketed by about 1,800 percent since 1992.

Ogle works with a client's creative and marketing department, designing media plans that get a company the most for its money.

"I mirrored it after the media department at Howard Merrell," Ogle said.

Her years in advertising paid off almost immediately when she signed two clients: Johnson's Jewelers and Jeffrey's Living and Family Rooms. Soon after, she added the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitor's Bureau and Sprint Cellular.

"Those helped me grow my company because they were significant accounts, and those accounts allowed me to use all my skills," she recalls.

Ogle began lean, working alone from her home for the first six months, before renting office space on Chapel Hill Road in Cary and adding staff.

Today, MRPP boasts 13 employees and a 4,000-square foot space in Olde Cary Commons in Downtown Cary. She and her husband own the building with two partners.

"For nine years I paid rent and we finally decided to buy some property," she said of MRPP's recent move, which coincided with the company's anniversary. "And it's three blocks from home, so I can walk to work."

Offering plenty of choices

In concentrating on planning, buying and media coordination, MRPP works with clients that want both seasonal media buys or full-fledged campaigns.

"You know, media is where all a company's advertising money is spent," Ogle said. "About 70 percent of an advertising budget is spent on media, so a media department in any company could be a huge profit-maker.

Buying smart media - looking at a company's marketing objectives and planning the media campaign based on such strategic factors as reach and frequency exposure - means a company gets the most for its media dollars.

MRPP's staff works in teams, concentrating in four areas: planning, buying, coordinating the media plans, and promotions. "We feel our promotions department is a unique service that a lot of media services don't have," Ogle said.

Her promotions staff is in daily contact with radio, TV and newspaper reps, staying on top of sponsorships and opportunities for visibility.

"That's added value," she said, relating an instance in which advance notice of an event gave one client free exposure. "A TV station was holding a fair and needed an outdoor playground built. Because our promotions department knew in advance about the event, we called a client who builds playground equipment and put them in touch with the station…..

"Our client built the playground and received publicity - what we call added value because they didn't spend a dime on advertising."

There's a lot to be said for such partnerships, said Sue Toth, an advertising veteran who has been with MRPP for five years. It was her idea to make added value a priority when working with clients.

"It's a very pioneering approach, we believe," Toth said. "Everyone from planners to buyers to media coordinators is involved in the brainstorming."

MRPP must make wise media buys so clients see a return for their investment.

"What we do for a client is in concert with whatever else they're doing," Ogle said. "And our theory for buying is that it's not always best to wait for the lowest rate because the best spots might be gone if you wait too long."

Missing a prime-time commercial slot is as difficult to explain to a client as having a commercial bumped by a TV or radio station's higher-paying customer.

"You can never assume a schedule will be there if you've paid the lowest rate. A TV or radio placement should be a win for the station, a win for the client and a win for us.

Making the right choices

Determining which media is best for a client is part of MRPP's services, Ogle said, citing a radio campaign recommended recently for Roses Stores. The Henderson, N. C.-based company had used a Pennsylvania ad agency for years, but sought out Ogle's firm as competition forced it to close many stores and change it's media strategy.

"They were not a radio user, but because of advertising budget cuts, we suggested they put their ad dollars with local radio stations in the markets where they have stores," she said. "They don't share their sales results with us, but we know the strategy worked because they keep coming back…..

"We feel we took their dollars and maximized them to the hilt," she added.

That kind of success and a growing market makes Ogle optimistic about her career shift.

"Perhaps our greatest success story is that we do still have the first clients we ever got," she said. "Jeffrey's Living and Family rooms is a small advertiser and loyal advertiser."

In 1995 and 1996, MRPP was named to Triangle Business Journal's Fast 50 - an annual list of the 50 fastest growing privately-held businesses in the Triangle. It's also listed on the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce Future 30.

Ogle's desire to grow and continue offering customized media service available doesn't stop with MRPP's clients. Once a single mom who had to take her children to the workforce every day, she strives to provide her employees with flexible work schedules.

In fact, Toth joined MRPP part-time as a way to keep her skills sharp and still enjoy time with her young son.

"Whatever our employees need, we try to be flexible," Ogle said. "I want my employees to have the best of both worlds, because if they feel good about home, they'll feel good about work."

The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitor's Bureau's Scott Dupree said that idea works well. "It's a real credit to Sheila that her staff really enjoys working there. They are really good to work with and they excel at what they do."

Dupree, the bureau's director of communications and marketing, said he speaks with Ogle, Toth, or someone on MRPP's staff nearly every day.

"We know what they do is working because we track the numbers of requests we get from our advertising, and every year since we've been working with MRPP, those number have gone up," he said.

Aside from her agency work, Dupree said, "How she finds time to do all that she does is unbelievable to me."

Advocacy work

Her other work includes various ad industry and civic affairs. She's an advocate for student development, frequently hiring interns onto her staff. She established Career Day while president of the triangle Advertising Federation, and was instrumental in starting the Student advertising Club at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She also founded the Triangle Ad2 Club for young advertising professionals, and instituted the first student intern program for the Triangle Advertising Federation.

For those and other efforts she was inducted into UNC's North Carolina Advertising Hall of Fame in 1994.

In 1995, Ogle was elected one of the 26 delegates to represent North Carolina at the White House Conference on Small business. She serves on the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce board of Directors, and is vice chairman of communications. Ogle spent the 1996-1997 program year for the N.C. Chapter of the National Association of women Business Owners as its president.

From her office on the second floor of Olde Cary Commons, she oversees main street of a town that just 25 years ago had a population of about 10,000. Now heading to100,000, Cary is a place that has great client potential. And it's home.

"I grew up here," she said. "My personal philosophy and my career philosophy mean that I want to- and do- give back to others and to the community."

As a company, MRPP contributes media expertise to Raleigh's First Night celebration each New Year's Eve, and both Ogle and Toth are serving on a Marketing Team for Kids Together Inc., in Cary. That's a non-profit organization raising money for a playground designed to be fully accessible to all children regardless of their level of ability.

The Marketing Team is determining the best way to develop a business and community marketing strategy to raise money for the Kids Together Playground.

"Sheila is a real go-getter," said Kids Together President Marla Dorrel. "She's not afraid to use her contacts to bring more expertise to a project and get the job done."

Sheila Hale Ogle
Founder/President: Media Research Planning & Placement Inc.
Hometown: Cary

Business Involvement: Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, board of directors and vice chair of communications; past president/member, N.C. Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO); past president/member, Triangle Advertising Federation.

Accolades: TBJ's "Fast 50" for 1995 and 1996; Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce's Future 30; Member, North Carolina Advertising Hall of Fame.