Valley PR Blog

Zion & Zion agency expanding

By Linda VandeVrede on June 30th, 2010 In Agencies

Always looking for good news in our Arizona economy, and it appears that Tempe-based agency Zion & Zion has been attracting both clients and employees. Recently they announced five new hires, and several international clients.

I asked agency CEO Aric Zion what he thinks the agency does differently.  

“First, we’re not straight PR, i.e. we take it to another level where we integrate advanced analytics for both PR and social media, and we have an in-house team that focuses on web applications development to enhance our social media efforts. Also, being a full-service firm, it’s very easy for us to augment our clients’ PR and social media campaigns on the fly with creative, web elements, signage, e-mail campaigns, etc.

“As for the employees, here’s the straight story. If you walked into the Zion and Zion office, you’d find a 14-month-old puppy as our mascot in the office every day. You would find whiteboard walls and bright orange and yellow concrete leather chairs in our brainstorming “Thinking Room.”

“You would find us shutting down the company for three days each year for an employee lake outing on a workday, and in July, you’ll find the whole company at a Tuesday morning movie outing. The bottom line is that if people aren’t having fun, they’re not productive, they’re not loyal, and clients and the businesses suffer.”

The key to being able to expand, he says, is being a truly integrated firm, where every person in every functional area and at every level of the organization is also heavily involved in areas outside their own. The fact that the PR people work with the applications developer and designer on a social media campaign enables them to bring things to their clients that are beyond the traditional scope.

Also key, he feels, is the fact that when a client asks for something last minute or outside the scope of their agreement, Zion & Zion employees are always genuinely enthusiastic about exceeding their expectations. “Clients hate lawyer-like billing,” he says, “and they steer clear of it as much as possible.”

There are three things they look for when they are in hiring mode. First is what he calls “a forward-leaning posture,” where the person literally looks as if he or she can’t wait to come across a table and get started because they just know how good a job they can do.

Two is a person who is already well-versed in areas outside their core area and/or has an innate desire to expand their skills.

Three is someone who is technology-savvy and has his/her head around social media and measuring everything that they do, because “clients absolutely love it when you really want to measure things and don’t just do it because you have to.”

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I look at 3 things myself when I evaluate the local economy:  how many agencies and companies are hiring and at what level, and how Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are doing.    All three signs look good now!

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