🔒The VIA Agency takes home top honors from Ad Age

The VIA Agency may be housed in Portland's former public library, but the little ad shop has been anything but quiet lately. From its offices in the renovated Baxter building on Congress Street, VIA is making noise in the advertising world, earning the 2011 small agency of the year award from industry bible Ad Age.

CEO John Coleman shares what the honor means for the company he founded 18 years ago, which now tackles campaigns for clients including Friendly's, Romano's Macaroni Grill and Welch's grape juice with a staff of more than 85. The following is a condensed and edited transcript:

Mainebiz: What's the significance of Ad Age's recognition?

Coleman: This is like winning an Oscar for best picture from the Academy. It's the highest recognition, really in the world, for the 10,000 agencies represented, defined by 150 people or smaller. There are lots of creative awards agencies can win, but this is an award for the totality of what the agency does and stands for.

Why do you think the recognition is coming now?

We are exceptionally good marketers when it comes to dealing with really challenging problems. The tougher the economy's gotten, the stronger we've gotten. And about five years ago, we started to focus on national consumer brands, and that's what gets more notoriety.

The campaign case studies on your website refer to many instances where you had only weeks to finish your work.

Because we are very integrated in what we do, we're able to move much faster than many agencies without sacrificing the strategic underpinnings. We have a lot of very senior, capable people here, so we can attack really complicated marketing problems and bring an enormous amount of marketing expertise to the table at the beginning. One client referred to us as the SEAL Team 6 of advertising.

Your employees are said to be very "nice." How do you screen for niceness in job interviews?

I will not hire someone unless I take them out to lunch or dinner, and see how they operate. Anyone who doesn't treat a server well, even if they're wildly talented, will not work here. I have to live with these people, I have to travel with them, I want to like them. And I think that's a direct correlation to how good your work can be. If there's not a fundamental respect, you'll never be collaborative and you'll never get to the ideas that are going to be successful in today's very challenging environment.

Do interviewees ever cite the TV show "Mad Men," about 1960s Madison Avenue, as an inspiration?

Mad Men's been a fascinating phenomenon. I actually haven't watched it. I watched the first episode with my wife, and she went, "You know, this is too misogynistic for me to sit through. I don't want to know my husband works in an industry that has this as its history."

For VIA to take on a brand as a client, do you have to personally use or believe in their product or service?

Yes. I can remember when I started, we were approached by a company that made the computer systems and process equipment for making cigarettes. And I was like, we can't do that. But then there was someone on my team whose parents were from Virginia, third-generation tobacco growers. So what I realized was far be it from me to impose my own morality. We decided collectively not to do it, but it's not an easy topic. There are very few industries or products that are so questionable we wouldn't work with them.