Ad-stronauts

• By TED GRIGGS
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jun 28, 2009

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How to create a national-award-winning advertising agency:

Step One: Lose Your Job.

Rockit Science Agency president Brad BonGiovanni confronted his Houston-we-have-a-problem moment in 2001 during the last national recession. His employer, Kaminer & Welch of Jackson, Miss., lost a huge, national account with some major bottling companies. Shortly afterward, the company punched the eject button on BonGiovanni’s cubicle, and he found himself adrift in the employment universe.

BonGiovanni returned to Baton Rouge to talk things over with his father.

“He said, ‘You know, this could be a positive thing for you. This could open doors for you,’” BonGiovanni said. “At the time I was like, ‘There’s no way. I don’t have a job. This is the worst thing that ever happened.’”

But his father reminded him that BonGiovanni had always wanted to do his own thing. BonGiovanni already knew what it was like working for a large ad agency. He didn’t want to jump to another, where the pay was good but creative opportunities were limited. He figured he had nowhere to go but up.

He launched the company.

Step Two: Starve.

“My first year I did $12,000,” BonGiovanni said.

That worked out to around $30 a week more than unemployment benefits, but BonGiovanni didn’t care. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment that doubled as his office, and the office never closed. “Good thing I wasn’t married at the time because I was able to work all hours of the night and just get it done,” BonGiovanni said.

He joined the Baton Rouge chapter of the American Advertising Federation and introduced himself to other members. BonGiovanni told them he was new in town but experienced in advertising, and he was looking for freelance work.

There were five or six times during that first year that the business could have folded, BonGiovanni said, but he kept scrambling.

A year or so later, BonGiovanni finally felt confident enough to give his fledgling agency a name. He scribbled down a list of possibilities, and Rockit Science stuck. Today that piece of paper sits in a frame in BonGiovanni’s office.