The Upstart – Olson Advertising

 

One of our favorite ad blogs, AdPulp has beaten us to the punch on reporting about Minneapolis agency Olson. As they stated in a post today, “Minneapolis-based Olson — which employs about 100 people — has been on a tear lately. The shop has picked up three accounts in a 60-day stretch.”

Olson recently picked up Fifth Third Bank, the nation’s 13th largest bank, Allen-Edmonds shoes and Starkey Laboratories’. The small shop also does work for PBS, Sallie Mae, Target, General Mills, The Detroit Pistons and Opus. Currently, they have a staff of about 170 with $175M in billings. They’re also hiring – Olson in San Francisco is looking for an Associate Technical Creative Director. Get more info here.  If you want more of a look at the shop’s culture, their website offers a series of videos showing the team playing dodgeball, riding bikes down stairs, sumo wrestling and doing all that other stuff that agencies are known to do. Sadly, they can’t be embedded.

The indie agencies leadership roster includes:  John Olson (pictured above) Chief Executive Officer; Kevin DiLorenzo, President; Tom Fugleberg, Executive Creative Director; Bob Molhoek, Business Strategy Officer/VP and Tim Brinkmann, Chief Financial Officer.

Wonder if these guys know that there are a few companies out there named Olson who are in the biz – Olson Advertising and Design – operating out of Massachusetts and yet another, Rick Olson Advertising out of Austin? We only mention this, because if you put “Olson Advertising” into Google, it’s pretty easy to get confused.