Traction Marketing Group

Below you can read the story that appeared 7/7/07 in the Oklahoman and on NewsOK.com.

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Ad agency lets creative juices flow in new space

'Going Tilt-Up'

By Richard Mize
Real Estate Editor

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Smith & Associates left the button-down world behind when Tyler Smith took control and made over the ad agency, changed it to Traction Marketing Group and moved it to a — tilt-up concrete warehouse?

Yep. They moved into a warehouse, complete with a 12-by-12 garage door that goes up each morning and comes back down each night.

It's an "echoey, grungy warehouse with flickery fluorescent lights,” as Smith put it, a "postmodern industrial-contemporary setting to get the juices flowing for the art department.”

A place full of ‘wow' factors
The wide-open place at 127 NW 62 — called Warehouse 127 — is full of "wow” factors, said his dad, Larry Smith.

Bright colors with names like "creeping jenny” — a shade of green, of course — are everywhere on 10- and 12-foot walls.

The company Web site showcases the vivid hues at www.tractionokc.com.

The 47-by-15-foot loft really is the artists' lair. Some 44 feet of neon lights complement 113 halogen bulbs and eight fluorescent fixtures.

Shiny, aluminum, exposed spiral ductwork keeps the space sealed, but lightly. A working stoplight at the top of the stairs winks at visitors.

The firm was founded in 1974, when Larry Tate was still the standard for an ad executive, Darrin Stephens was the standard for an ad man, and their stiff collars and big formal offices were the standard for an ad agency. You know, from "Bewitched.” On TV.

Maybe you don't remember. In fact, Tyler Smith, named company president in December, doesn't remember unless it's from reruns on syndication. He's 30. He wasn't born yet when "Bewitched” ended in 1972.

Which is sort of the point of the drastic changes he's made lately as president and creative director of Traction Marketing Group.

He joined the firm five years ago, after studying fine arts at Oklahoma State University, playing guitar and bass in some bands — the last one Stone Turtle — and then running a recording studio.

Making a bold move
"Tyler had come into the company and encouraged us to become a little more creative,” said Larry Smith, his father.

That included moving from typical office space at 5749 NW 72 where the firm had been for 24 years to what is now Warehouse 127.

He started out looking for an office-warehouse combo, thinking the graphic artists would need only about 300 square feet of grunge to stoke their creativity.

But when he saw the warehouse with the loft, the big garage door, concrete everywhere and all that open space, his own creative juices started flowing, and they ran all over the 5,800 square feet of it.

‘All we had to do was make it habitable'
In addition to splashing color everywhere and adding interesting touches like the stoplight, he designed a conference table out of Plexiglas and metal — four tables, actually, that can be rearranged for different types of meetings.

He had the lot and downstairs business office carpeted but kept most of the concrete ground floor.

He put a ping-pong table downstairs and a foosball table upstairs.

Music plays.

Someone laughs anywhere in the place, you can hear it. It's almost festive.

"All we had to do was make it habitable,” Tyler Smith said, which is sort of a modest way of describing the work that D.H. French Construction Co. did executing his design of the space.

His dad is all for it.

"I get it. But he had to sell me on it. I've always been in a traditional office,” he said, sitting at a round table in a corner open to the warehouse space, with music playing, someone laughing out loud — and him wearing business casual with an open collar.