Top Company winner: Pure Brand

MEDIA/ADVERTISING/PR

Pure Brand Communications

The beliefs that guide Pure Brand
Communications reflect a company culture both edgy and cutting edge:

Nuture stupidity. Avoid the middle. Don’t insult your audience. Practice judo. Trust your instincts. Know the janitor’s name.

“We believe that the best creative ideas often are born from non-linear thinking,” says CEO Dan Igoe, who co-founded Pure with Gregg Bergan nine years ago. “We embrace the absurd, and we question the status quo. We think the highest-impact ideas live on the fringe of reality.”

Pure Brand, which specializes in public relations, media training, advertising, digital/social media and graphic design, started with a plan to be a “big brains, small machine,” Igoe says.

“There are many companies that deserve this Top Company title as much as we do,” Igoe says. “But if we had to isolate something unique, it would probably be the freedom that people have at Pure to reach the highest level of their potential. Our hands-off management style allows us to hire smart people and get out of their way to do their jobs. In short, we believe in our people.”

They also believe in the power of a great story to help clients reach their goals. A rigorous exploration of brand makes it possible for Pure to enhance its clients’ business and, when necessary, effectively reframe sticky situations.

Igoe recalls an example involving Cessna: The big three automakers had just asked Congress for a bailout, and their executives had flown to the meeting on expensive private aircraft. The media pounced on the story, he says.

“Rather than shrink from the attention, we recommended it was time for Cessna to stand up and defend the entire business aviation category. And we created a campaign of support that gave corporate flying America a voice,” he says. “Almost overnight, the conversation changed. And business aviation claimed its rightful place as a tool of productivity instead of the poster child of corporate excess.”