Appareo

Appareo didn't start with a love for advertising. It didn't start with a love for computers or the web. It started with a love for snowboarding. In high school / college I spent crazy amounts of time on the side of Mt. Hood . It was my obsession with snowboarding that led me to a startup that sold snowboard and wakeboard gear online. That's where I... fell in love with the internet. It gave me the same sense of freedom and possibility that snowboarding always had. The internet was this platform with the ability to change the way we communicated, did business, and just about everything in-between. Over time I became the director of sales and marketing. I was responsible for all the ways we marketed ourselves online. It was the early days of online retail so it took a lot of effort and experimentation to figure out what worked. Through a lot of trial and error I learned the power of the internet to help companies reach their customers. Digital advertising helped us spread our company's message: buy a little gear so you can enjoy the outdoors with friends and family (just like I had for so many years). And that is one of the critical distinctions at Appareo, we understand that no one starts a company or works for a company so they can do advertising. You work hard because you believe in what your company is doing in the world. As great as digital advertising is, it's simply a mechanism to help push the mission of a company forward. As the company grew I went looking for an agency to help us expand and improve what we were already doing. That's when I entered a strange world, one I had never experienced. I discovered that most ad agencies win business with slick presentations, impressive client lists, and tales of superior technology. But once the schmoozing was over and you sign on the dotted line your account is handed off to a jr. analyst who is already managing 10 accounts. You just became another client to pacify. Many people inside these agencies want to do great work but agencies are set up with big trendy ...Read More