Photo from Fred Senn, Fallon Minneapolis. Ferry Porsche was 80 years old in 1989 when this was taken at his home in Austria.
Received from Fred Senn, Fallon Founding Partner and active Nord Stern member:
Who would imagine that Porsche’s advertising would be created in Minnesota?
The strength of Nord Stern, and the creative reputation of Minnesota’s advertising community combined to accomplish that feat twice. In the fall of 1987 Fallon won the Porsche national advertising account. The agency celebrated the win by placing a mint condition 1963 356 in their new offices on the 31st floor at 9th and Marquette in downtown Minneapolis. Nord Stern was involved from the very beginning, helping the local agency come up to speed.
Nord Stern hosted two PCNA marketing executives at a BIR Fast Fling to give them a firsthand taste of club activities. One of those clients, Hartmut Kristin, went on to become worldwide head of Porsche Motorsport. The agency did award winning work for Porsche, and the team was invited by Ferry Porsche himself to a film interview in his Stuttgart home. Those interviews became classic long form commercials and auto show videos for years to come.With a change in top management at PCNA, the account then moved to a San Francisco agency. But not for long. In 1999 Carmichael Lynch parlayed their experience with Harley Davidson motorcycles and brought the Porsche account back to Minnesota.
Roger’s comments: I remember visiting with Hartmut Kristin and Fred at BIR. The conversation revolved around bringing the 964 Carrera RS to this country. A couple of years later we had the RS America which wasn’t exactly what we were asking for and sales languished. The conversation was right on the money, however, as today we have the GT3 and GT3-RS which sell very well for Porsche and are very popular in PCA.
You can tell when speaking to Fred about his two days at Ferry Porsche’s home in Austria with then-retired octogenarian the that project was one of the highlights of his stellar advertising career.
It was a phone call from Fred to Carmichael-Lynch the fall of 2002 that sparked our current relationship.