A True Father -Son Relay
1 Dec, 2002 By: Thomas Haire ResponseFormer track stars Sydney and Robert Yallen have turned Inter/Media Advertising into a $200 million industry giant. And the father/son team doesn't plan on giving up the race any time soon.
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"I'm very proud of what we do," says Robert Yallen, president and chief operating officer of Encino, Calif.-based Inter/Media Advertising, a company that has roots in its early history as a general media buyer but has become an industry leader by blending direct response and brand advertising.
"What I don't like is the feeling that people in the direct response industry can often be made to feel like stepchildren or afterthoughts in the advertising world," the outspoken Yallen adds. "What I see everyday is our company and industry colleagues being embraced by some larger advertisers, and that's really a good feeling. But, I think we need better education out there about what we can do. If our target clients are more familiar with what we do, it can only help the business. What we do is deliver a true media plan."
It's not surprising to hear such straightforward statements from Robert or his father, Sydney, who founded Inter/Media in 1974 and still serves as chief executive officer of the company. Both Yallens know something about being straightforward. After all, you can't become a collegiate sprinter if you don't know how to move ahead quickly and decisively.
 Sydney Yallen, founder/CEO (left) Born: 1933 Education: B.S., advertising and marketing, University of Southern California Family: Wife Penny, a former television skating star; one son, Robert. Robert Yallen, president/COO (right) Born: 1960 Education: B.S., marketing, California State University, Northridge; J.D., Southwestern University School of Law Family: Wife Linda, a physical therapist and painter; one daughter, Lindsay, attending University of Colorado; one son, Jordan, a 12-year-old traveling club baseball player. |
That's right - Sydney Yallen ran track at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., in the early 1950s and Robert, who joined Inter/Media in 1984, followed in his footsteps as an All-American sprinter at California State University, Northridge. "When I was running, the world record in the 100-yard dash was 9.4 with a handheld stopwatch," Sydney contends. "I ran a 9.7."
Clearly, these two gentlemen have applied the knowledge gained from the track about the importance of getting off the line quickly when it comes to running their business. Since opening its doors, Inter/Media has evolved from a general media buying company into a fully integrated media and creative firm that operates in four units that may be used separately or collectively by clients: Inter/Media Time Buying, the original company that is still a national media buying service; Inter/Media Advertising, a national full-service advertising agency with research, planning, creative and account management specialists; Inter/Image Productions, a film and video production company; and Inter/Post Productions, a complete digital non-linear post-production facility.
But, running a business like Inter/ Media seems more like a marathon than a sprint. Especially when you consider the Yallens contend key clients in the business' rise to prominence didn't come on the scene until more than a decade after Inter/Media opened.
Radio Days
The beginnings of Inter/Media date to the days when radio ruled the home entertainment roost. After Sydney graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with an advertising and marketing degree, he continued to work at Los Angeles AM radio station KFWB, where he'd begun as an office boy at age 13, earning $5 a week. "Eventually, I worked in every department - promotions, advertising, programming, sales," Sydney says.
But in 1958, as station manager, Sydney introduced the "Color Radio-Fabulous 40" format to the station, which to that point had been a music-news-sports station that ranked fifth in the Southern California market. "We changed it to a top 40 station and, within a month, KFWB became the No. 1 station in Southern California," he says. "It was probably the heaviest ad campaign any radio station had ever done to that point in time."
After that success - one he calls a defining moment in his career - Sydney moved on to become executive vice president of Continental Intl. Productions, a television and radio syndicator. In 1967, he became west coast regional manager for Pepper & Tanner, a broadcast barter company, and he also served as the head of west coast operations for Media Partners, a media buying service, beginning in 1970. He left that job in 1974 to start his own business - Inter/Media.
"I just figured it was time to set out on my own," Sydney says unassumingly. "We started as Inter/Media Time Buying, and we served as a general media buyer for our clients."
A Son Joins the Race
During the early years, a young Robert Yallen was a fixture around the offices. "In my teens, during the summer and over holidays, I worked here from the ground up," he says. "I joke that I swept the floors, but it really wasn't far from that. I did a lot of busywork - reconciling affidavits, the whole nine yards. I really learned the business from that time."
After earning a bachelor of science degree in business with an emphasis n marketing at Northridge and his law degree from Southwestern University School of Law, the younger Yallen decided to set his own course. "I had an entrepreneurial streak that has helped me out in this job," Robert contends. "I ran my own jewelry business during school and then joined a law firm for a time after passing the bar."
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But it wasn't long before the possibility of working with Sydney to build something great at Inter/Media became too enticing.
Defining Events Chart
Company's Course
"When I joined, we were still a general media company," Robert says. "90 percent of the business was still general business. I wanted to see what kind of accounts I could get, so I started watching TV, listening to radio. I wrote down the numbers I was hearing and started calling and pitching. I was getting lawyers, medical groups. Basically, that's how we started with direct response companies, and we really started to grow it quickly."
The big early break came when Yallen came across a big-time bankruptcy lawyer named Hugh Slate. "He called me one day and said, 'Robert, I've got this new phone number - (213) NO-BILLS,'" he contends. "I told him that was great, and we'd run it on a local L.A. station, while running all your other numbers elsewhere."
Like many other companies at the time, Inter/Media used unique phone numbers for unique media venues to make tracking easier. When Slate said he wanted to use his new number in every venue, the Yallens were faced with no other choice but to build their own call tracking system, Accutrak®. Now in its sixth version, the copyright-protected and trademarked software is still used in conjunction with each of the agency's media plans and enables Inter/Media and its clients to assign each call to a specific spot with a very high degree of accuracy.
But, the success Inter/Media had with (213) NO-BILLS was just the beginning. "We realized that you could build a brand with just a simple phone number," Robert says. "We started getting better and better at our craft and realized DR was definitely here to stay. But when infomercials started really coming into play, we made the strategic decision to stick with short form."
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