Hill Holliday Adds Erwin Penland Nameplate to New York Office
September 14, 2011
Move Formalizes Long-Standing Partnership with Agency’s Greenville, S.C., Operation
NEW YORK – September 14, 2011 – The Interpublic Group’s Hill Holliday today announced it is adding the Erwin Penland nameplate to its New York offices in a move designed to position both agency brands for future growth.
Boston-based Hill Holliday has operated a New York office since 1983, expanding its unit there with the acquisition of Altschiller & Co. in 1996. Erwin Penland joined the Hill Holliday family in 2004 in part because of a common client: Erwin Penland and Hill Holliday’s New York office both handled regional retail advertising duties for Verizon Wireless. Today, Hill Holliday and Erwin Penland handle all national retail advertising for the nation’s largest wireless provider.
Collectively Hill Holliday and Erwin Penland represent such other renowned brands as Dunkin’ Donuts, Bank of America, Liberty Mutual, Major League Baseball, Lockheed Martin and L’eggs brand hosiery. Both agencies have worked seamlessly with the resources of the New York office – which include strategic, creative, media, digital, direct marketing and analytics capabilities – but today’s announcement gives Erwin Penland a formal presence in the world’s largest advertising market.
“Erwin Penland has effectively operated as a unified team with our New York office for years serving the needs of some of the nation’s largest marketers, so expanding the Erwin Penland brand to New York is really just a formality,” said Hill Holliday Chief Executive Officer Mike Sheehan. “This move will allow for an even more efficient sharing of resources, and allows both agency brands to more effectively market our full range of capabilities to world-class clients across the country.”
Erwin Penland has restructured its management to include leadership from both New York and Greenville. Erwin Penland co-founder and President Joe Erwin will oversee the agency’s operations in both Greenville and New York, continuing to report to Hill Holliday President Karen Kaplan. Appointed to the newly created position of chief operating officer at Erwin Penland is longtime director of client services Allen Bosworth, who was a co-principal of the agency before the merger with Hill Holliday.
The agency also introduced a new logo and unveiled a new website – www.erwinpenland.com – to capture the essence of the newly expanded brand.
“As we compete against a broader range of agencies for the opportunity to work with more leading national brands, we see this expanded New York presence as an exciting next step in our history,” said Erwin, who left DMB&B in New York to create Erwin Penland in Greenville in 1986. “We’re now in a position to leverage the extraordinary skills and experience of professionals in both New York and Greenville – creating one integrated team that is uniquely positioned to help grow our clients’ businesses.”
About Hill Holliday
Hill Holliday’s purpose is to create a singular, resonant idea upon which a company can build business success that endures for years, even decades. The ultimate reward for such a mission? Relationships that endure. Hill Holliday’s top five clients have been partners of the agency for an average of 16 years, five times longer than the industry standard. The agency’s resonant ideas have achieved the highest international accolades for creativity and effectiveness: Hill Holliday has the distinction of being one of the very few agencies in the world to be awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes, the Grand Clio, and the Grand Effie. Behind this grand thinking are 850 employees in Boston, New York and Greenville who bring talent and expertise to every area of communications — strategy and planning, advertising, digital and social, media planning and buying, and branded content — on behalf of industry leaders like Verizon Wireless, Bank of America, Liberty Mutual, Dunkin’ Donuts, John Hancock, Chili’s, Major League Baseball, and Novartis. To learn more, visit www.hhcc.com.
About Erwin Penland
Erwin Penland (www.erwinpenland.com) is a full-service marketing firm with offices in New York and Greenville, S.C., providing advertising, experiential branding, event marketing, interactive, public relations and strategic planning services to clients including Verizon, Denny’s, Lockheed Martin, BI-LO Supermarkets and Advance America. The 400-person firm is part of Boston-based Hill Holliday, one of the nation’s largest ad agencies and a member of The Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG).
