Kansas City Marketing Legends
The marketing business is like an iceberg. What the public experiences in a :30 second spot on television or online is the tip of the iceberg. So too is the piece of positive publicity about a company or product that someone reads or the piece of persuasive content that lands in their computer or phone. All just the tip of the iceberg. What’s below the proverbial tip is what this podcast is all about. It’s about the people behind the ideas and the effort that it takes to conceive and produce them. And it’s about all the blood, sweat, and tears these folks gave and the fun and laughter they had while doing it. Most important, the stories we will tell all happened right here in Kansas City. Our idea is simple. Let’s reach out to all the people who made the Kansas City marketing community what it is today. What we are today is a city of creative powerhouses of all sizes doing work not just across the metro or region, but across the nation and the world. Welcome to the Kansas City Marketing Legends Podcast! Brought To You By — evolution Audio Post Production // Springboard Creative // KC Ad Club // PRSA of Kansas City
Episodes
Deb Turpin didn’t just ride the waves of change in the design world — she helped shape them.
Back in 1985, Deb co-founded River City Studio and built it from the ground up into one of Kansas City’s most admired creative agencies. For 25 years, she led with guts and vision — guiding her team through industry changes, from the dawn of desktop publishing to the digital and social media boom.
In this episode, Deb pulls back...
Mike Goff is someone who’s left a lasting mark not just on Kansas City, but on the national and global stage. Mike’s career spans the agency world, the corporate world, and now the fast-growing space of fractional CMO services. He’s worked with some of the most iconic names in business and culture — Hallmark, the NFL, even the Rolling Stones — and played a key role in bringing the Sprint Center to life in the heart of...
Joe Greene is a true marketing heavyweight whose career spans both the client and agency worlds. From launching groundbreaking mortgage campaigns at Dreyfus to helping American Express dig out of a $300 million-hole, Joe has been at the center of some of marketing’s biggest challenges and boldest transformations. And when he landed in Kansas City, he brought that same vision and precision to American Century Investmen...
Today, we’ll hear the inspiring journey of Siobhan Lesley — one of the forces behind the success of Valentine Radford, one of Kansas City’s legendary agencies, where she rose all the way to President. Siobhan’s story is rooted in leadership, purpose, and a deep passion for people. We’ll dive into her work on iconic accounts like Pizza Hut, and how that path eventually led her to another great KC agency — Walz Tetrick ...
From the cockpit to the boardroom, Al Eidson’s career is a masterclass in leadership and reinvention. He started out flying C-141 cargo planes across the Pacific in the Air Force, then moved into the corporate world at Procter & Gamble, helping launch new products. Eventually, he brought it all together — co-founding agencies like Eidson Spear and Eidson & Partners, where he blended his military mindset with a...
Season Two kicks off with the trailblazing Ann Willoughby, founder of Willoughby Design. Her story begins in the aisles of a small department store in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where she sketched fashion illustrations that would mark the start of a remarkable career.
After relocating to Kansas City, Ann didn’t just launch a design firm—she built a creative powerhouse and became a pioneer for women entrepreneurs in an ...
Welcome to Season Two of Kansas City Marketing Legends!
After the incredible energy and inspiring conversations of Season One, we knew we had to come back for more. This season, we’re diving even deeper into the stories and insights of the people who have helped make Kansas City a marketing powerhouse.
A special shoutout to our friends at Evolution Audio — we’re thrilled to have recorded every episode live in their stud...
As they say, it's a wrap! Season One of Kansas City Marketing Legends is in the books. We are extremely grateful to all of you who have listened to our conversations with the legends of Season One and look forward to offering up more legends when we launch Season Two in early 2025.
This final episode of our first season gives us a chance to remember some of the high points of our first season and provide you with ...
Becky Blades is the ultimate startist. Her second book is titled Start More Than You Can Finish. That certainly describes Becky to a tee.
As you will hear into this episode of Kansas City Marketing Legends, Becky not only started a lot of things, but she finished a few as well. And how well she did finish. But as you will hear, after starting her own PR Firm and then deciding to sell it, Becky was only beginning to bec...
So, three ad guys are sitting around in one of their homes one summer talking about how to create a new approach in the marketing business. No this is not the start of a joke. It’s exactly how the world’s largest agency was born right here in Kansas City.
Scott McCormick and his founding partners, John Valentine, and Craig Ligabel, left one firm in Kansas City and started what they hoped would be an early adaptation of...
Pasquale Trozzolo, without a doubt, founded one of our city’s premier agencies. Trozzolo Communications Group is an exemplary example of a family business. It also is a company that has recognized over the years how to grow through smart acquisitions and how to keep the principals of those they acquired to stay involved.
On this episode of Kansas City Marketing Legends, Pasquale will tell us why his experience in the p...
What’s it like to have your dad be your boss? Well, our guest today on Marketing Legends of Kansas City can tell us. Andy Fletcher worked for his dad at Fletcher Mayo and learned a thing or two there about the marketing business, especially in the agriculture arena.
But Andy has stories to tell us as he became in his words, a nomad in the business, gaining experience and then running shops over the years from Kansas Ci...
Chances are more than a few of you have Landa Williams to thank for a job or for an employee hire in a Kansas City agency or company. And even if you didn’t, you absolutely know a few people who did.
LandaJob is her company’s name, and she will tell us how that came about on this edition of the Marketing Legends of Kansas City. Plus, she might even give us some of those behind-the-scenes stories with everyone’s name pr...
There can be no dispute that Ewing Kaufmann is one of the most impactful and influential business leaders in Kansas City history. In this episode of Kansas City Marketing legends, we hear from one of our own legends what it was like to work for Mr. K. at Marion Labs and the business lessons he learned that helped him run his own public relations firm.
Larry Wheeler experienced first-hand the growth of Marion Labs. In f...
Bill Fromm was a born entrepreneur. He ran a dry-cleaning delivery service in college and his dream was to come back to Kansas City and start an advertising agency.
He made that dream come true and opened the doors of his agency on June 1, 1964. Today that agency is Barkley, and it is one of the leading independent agencies in the country. Along the way, he had a few other ideas for companies that he brought to life.
We...
Hallmark is not just one of Kansas City’s most revered companies, but it has also contributed to the overall growth of the creative community in the city. One of the best examples of that is the partnership that developed between Whitey Kuhn and the late Dale Wittenborn. The two met while working at Hallmark and then one day they started talking about creating a creative agency. And Kuhn & Wittenborn — was born.
#k...
Listeners to the Marketing Legends of Kansas City may find it hard to believe that there was a time when a handshake was all that was needed to create a decades long partnership between a global retailer and an ad agency in Kansas City. But that’s one story that our guest today can tell.
Bob Bernstein started his agency in 1964. The handshake he had was with none other than Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart. Bob will...
Kansas City has a rich and colorful history when it comes to our Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations community. We talked for a while about how to start capturing the stories. We quickly decided we did not want to write a book, so we landed on an even better idea – let’s start a podcast!
Our idea is simple. Let’s reach out to all the people who made the Kansas City marketing community what it is today. What we ...
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