The independent agency world — news, work, people and thinking.
After 76 Years, Preston Spire Is Now Meerkat
Minnesota's oldest independent agency took the partners' names off the door and rebuilt itself around a pack of scrappy thinkers
For 76 years, the Minneapolis agency now called Meerkat answered to the names on its door. It was Kerker, then Preston Kelly, then Preston Spire.
Jennifer Spire, partner and CEO, and Dustin Black, partner and chief creative officer, have retired the nameplate. Minnesota’s oldest independent agency — the shop that once put a cowboy monkey on a dog for Taco John’s and now works with Medtronic and Meet Minneapolis — is named for an animal that scans the horizon and rallies the pack.
“It shouldn’t be about us,” Spire says. “It should be about our people, and it should be about the work that we do.”
Seventy-six years of independence made the choice possible. “We couldn’t have that name if we weren’t independent,” she says.
Partners’ names on the door, then a meerkat
Every earlier name belonged to the partners in charge. Black arrived a year ago after 13 years at Colle McVoy, and a new name was one of the first things he and Spire wanted to do together.
“We should practice what we preach and be a brand,” Spire says. “Preston Spire can come across as a law firm or something, and it’s harder to build a brand based on something like that.”
The meerkat won on behavior. Black describes a bleak desert — “a little bit like our marketing landscape” — where the animals are “these little bright points of optimism and energy and community.” One stands sentinel, spots the opportunity and rallies everyone toward what he calls “that tasty snack.”
“We’re this pack of scrappy thinkers,” he says. The name had a head start, too: the agency’s in-house production studio already went by Meerkat Studios.
From Good Wins to feisty ideas
As Preston Spire, the agency was known for Good Wins — in Spire’s words, “existing to be a positive force in the world.” Its anti-gun violence work, including “The New Life Vest” for Change the Ref and “Project Lockdown” for Teachers Unify, collected national honors from Ad Age.
That purpose stays in the DNA, Spire says. The reputation Meerkat wants next is “creating these feisty ideas for brands on the move.”
Independence, seniority and big-brain ideas
Spire lists independence first, with no parent company or shareholders steering how the agency serves clients. Second is a senior team. “We don’t have a lot of layers at our agency,” she says.
Those senior people set the vision, then “roll up their sleeves and do the work, and then the work is better as a result.”
Black adds the third: strategy, media and creative. As AI commoditizes creativity, he wants Meerkat to “be that big brain that has the big strategy, the big design, the big ideas at the top.”
The back catalog helps his case. Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey rode a dog to deliver Taco John’s — “legend here in town,” Black says — and “The Scream Collector” for Nickelodeon Universe captured screams and put them on digital boards.
An agency where everybody owns a piece
Meerkat is partially employee-owned, and Spire says everybody has ownership in the agency. That stake gives people a hand in its vision and helps explain the long tenure.
“We have this entrepreneurial spirit at our agency that people get to make these big decisions, and I think we’re better as a result of it,” she says.
Clients feel it too. Black says decisions are made in the client’s best interest, and the agency can flex to any size. “If we want to try something, we try something,” he says.
Why one client stayed 26 years
Average client tenure sits close to nine years, a number Spire says would be higher if the agency weren’t adding new clients. Some have stayed 10 years. One stayed 26.
Most are retained agency-of-record relationships built on business results. “We are helping them win in the boardroom,” Spire says. “It’s more of a partnership than a vendor.”
Black’s biggest lesson from those brands is baked into the new name: get everybody marching in the same direction. “Internal is just as important as the customer,” he says. That means leadership buy-in, the client’s own teams and a whole organization rallied around a single idea.
Why talent joins a 52-person pack
Meerkat has about 52 people, and Black likes showing candidates the space. “We’re trying to bring back a little bit of the old school advertising,” he says.
His pitch is short: “Come here, be your best self, bring your expertise, bring your passion, bring your skills.”
Spire hears from people ready to leave holding companies. “They don’t want to be just a number,” she says. They find employee ownership, a sustainability committee, ongoing pro bono work and a say in the rebrand.
“It is not just us saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to be Meerkat, and this is what’s going to happen,’” she says.
Weirdos, misfits or underdogs? Yes
“I hope we’re all three,” Black says.
He supplies his own evidence. “I have five foot felt fish and five foot felt birds,” he says. “They’re at the airport.”
“We want our agency to be a place where the misfits and the weirdos feel at home,” he adds. The underdog part comes with the territory: “We’re never going to be the biggest. We don’t want to be the biggest.”
Spire picks underdogs. “We’re 52 people, but we punch above our weight,” she says. Black hands the same advice to clients: “You can just be the smartest or the weirdest.”
Hats off to the clients and the indies who helped
Black thanks the agency’s current clients, Medtronic among them, for the energy they’ve brought to the new brand. In his words, “hats off to them and thanks for helping us get here and grow.”
Spire credits the search consultants who gave feedback as the agency crafted its story. She also names her 4A’s CEO forum of independent agencies, including Giant Spoon, BarkleyOKRP, Cactus and Bailey Lauerman.
“They’re all, for the most part, larger than us,” she says. Their advice has added to the agency’s confidence, which is useful given what Spire calls the “aggressive goals ahead of us.”
After 76 years of partners’ names, the door now belongs to the pack.
Learn more
Meerkat
Jennifer Spire LinkedIn
Dustin Black LinkedIn
Meerkat LinkedIn
Contact: jspire@prestonspire.com | (612) 843-4000
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
