Kansas City Marketing Legends

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Bill Fromm was a born entrepreneur. He ran a dry-cleaning delivery service in college and his dream was to come back to Kansas City and start an advertising agency.

He made that dream come true and opened the doors of his agency on June 1, 1964. Today that agency is Barkley, and it is one of the leading independent agencies in the country. Along the way, he had a few other ideas for companies that he brought to life.

We will hear from Bill how he started the agency and helped launch what became a real estate giant, helped sell some expensive German beer and the story of winning the Sonic Drive-In account – a huge turning point in Barkley’s history.

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Listeners to the Marketing Legends of Kansas City may find it hard to believe that there was a time when a handshake was all that was needed to create a decades long partnership between a global retailer and an ad agency in Kansas City. But that’s one story that our guest today can tell.

Bob Bernstein started his agency in 1964. The handshake he had was with none other than Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart. Bob will also give us the real story of the creation McDonalds’ Happy Meal and why that may not have been the most successful idea Bernstein-Rein had for the company with the Golden Arches.

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Becky Blades is the ultimate startist. Her second book is titled Start More Than You Can Finish. That certainly describes Becky to a tee.

As you will hear into this episode of Kansas City Marketing Legends, Becky not only started a lot of things, but she finished a few as well. And how well she did finish. But as you will hear, after starting her own PR Firm and then deciding to sell it, Becky was only beginning to become a true legend in Kansas City and beyond.

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Kansas City has a rich and colorful history when it comes to our Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations community. We talked for a while about how to start capturing the stories. We quickly decided we did not want to write a book, so we landed on an even better idea – let’s start a podcast!

Our idea is simple. Let’s reach out to all the people who made the Kansas City marketing community what it is today. What we are today is a city of creative powerhouses of all sizes doing work not just across the metro or region, but across the nation and the world.

As we talked about doing this, we realized we have lost some of those folks, but we can find people who can tell their stories for them. And we are blessed to have so many people who put their handprints on our community who have agreed to spend an hour with us and share their part of the bigger story.

No one we speak with will refer to themselves as legendary so we will take it upon ourselves to do it for them. So welcome to the inaugural episode of the Kansas City Marketing Legends.

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Hallmark is not just one of Kansas City’s most revered companies, but it has also contributed to the overall growth of the creative community in the city. One of the best examples of that is the partnership that developed between Whitey Kuhn and the late Dale Wittenborn. The two met while working at Hallmark and then one day they started talking about creating a creative agency. And Kuhn & Wittenborn — was born.

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