The Marketing Company celebrates 40+ years

Brooke McAfee, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·4 min read

Jun. 2—NEW ALBANY — For the past four decades, The Marketing Company in New Albany has completed important behind-the-scenes work for businesses and nonprofits.

Vern Eswine, president and CEO of The Marketing Company, founded the agency in 1982, and the agency is now in its 41st year.

As he reflects on his career, Eswine attributes the company's success to its focus on relationships and building partnerships with clients.

The Marketing Company is a "full-service, solutions-based, brand-marketing firm," according to its website, and it works with more than 150 clients in more than 10 states.

"It's all about the relationship with the client," Eswine said. "One of the reasons we've been in business all these years through all the recessions and everything else...one of the reasons is because we focus on the relationship. So by doing that, as these clients have grown, we've grown with them."

Eswine was working in retail before he was hired as a graphic designer at The Tribune in New Albany, the newspaper that later merged with the Evening News in Jeffersonville to form the News and Tribune.

He took on other roles such as ad sales, and he eventually became assistant ad manager. He later moved on to other local publications and companies in the area.

He worked at National Management Marketing in New Albany, and Eswine brought in 60% of the business, he said. After leaving the agency, two banks in Kentucky hired him as marketing director.

"So when I split my time between the two, they both offered me a job as vice president of marketing," he said. "I told them, I've turned four businesses in the past six years, and as much as this sounds a like cushy job just focusing on one client, I'd really like to try and start a company on my own — would you like to be my first two clients, and they said yes."

For the first year of the business, Eswine worked in his basement, and as The Marketing Company grew, he opened offices in the Elsby Building in New Albany. About 28 years ago, the company opened its current location in a historic building at 1100 E. Spring St.

He said in the early days, the company helped "turned Harvest Homecoming around" as the festival faced financial struggles.

Eswine describes himself as a "business consultant with a marketing emphasis," and the company is not an advertising agency.

"Our approach isn't about production," he said. "We do it, but production has to have a reason and a purpose, and it has to have a result."

The company has "grown because we've adapted," Eswine said. The business developed its first website 33 years ago, and it started using social media and search engine optimization (SEO) about 15 years ago.

The company started working in digital marketing about 10 years ago.

The agency works with clients ranging from Cattleman's Roadhouse to Derby Dinner Playhouse, and the company works with many nonprofits in the area.

The company often organizes special fundraising events for clients, including Rauch's Imagine Awards, Personal Counseling Services' Samaritan Awards and LifeSpan's Voice & Vino.

Eswine is the communications director for River Heritage Conservancy, the nonprofit developing Origin Park in Clarksville, and he has been involved with the project since the start. The planned 430-acre park involves a major capital campaign raising millions of dollars, and the project has received grants on the state and federal levels to support the development of the park.

"It truly is a transformation and the biggest project that I've taken on," he said.

Eswine said The Marketing Company's focus is to "develop, build and sustain a brand," and partnership is key to that approach.

"So that means we partner with organizations — we're not a vendor, we're a partner," he said. "Our clients view us as a partner, and if they don't, they're not our client. All of our vendors that we work with... they're our partners too."

Eswine said he is in "no hurry" to retire, and he loves his work at The Marketing Company.

"Our format, how we approach things — it's just unique," he said. "And that's what's allowed us to be here all this time. I love the people I'm working with — they're creative, spontaneous, [and] they have passion about what they're doing. Our clients are really good people. They trust us."