ALLTEL Information Services was competing for attention with several other behemoths in the financial services technology space. It had traditionally placed full-page, four-color ads in the industry trades, but its budget constraints meant these ads could run only once or twice per month. For national publications with daily distribution, a monthly ad was a flyspeck.

In order to help ALLTEL Information Services be seen as an innovative leader in its industry, Thoma suggested a bold redirection of its creative and media strategies: develop a series of several dozen small space, spot color ads and then saturate the American Banker — considered the Wall Street Journal of the financial industry — with them.

Readership scores jumped, scoring at the mid to high end of the pack — impressive for one-third page spot color ads competing with full page, four-color ads. Our “Wow Campaign” became the theme for ALLTEL’s trade show presence and user conferences, and the ALLTEL sales team liked the ads so much they embedded them in sales presentations and plastered the walls with posters.