Quinn Group Advertising & Marketing, a longtime agency here, says it has rebranded by shortening its name to just QUINN, while also adding a new key team member after having last year expanded into full audio and video production.

Of the name change, Bonnie Quinn, owner and agency principal, says, “Basically, we wanted to simplify our message. We’ve made a lot of changes internally, and we wanted to portray that externally.” 

She says her brother, Jerry Quinn, a 20-year veteran in digital advertising who spent years working in the San Francisco Bay area, has joined the agency as vice president of media and strategy. He’s working mostly from a home office in the Seattle area, but commuting here twice a month, she says. 

She adds that she’d like to see the agency expand into regular office space in the Seattle area before long and hopes to use her brother’s connections and expertise to greatly enlarge its client base there.

Quinn says her brother was a driving force behind San Francisco’s first all-digital agency in the 1990s and was recruited by Microsoft Corp. to help lead that big company’s advertising sales efforts, which led him to move to the Puget Sound area. He also has worked for Apple, General Motors., and 20th Century Fox, among many other noteworthy clients, she says.

In his new role, he will be heavily involved in helping to integrate QUINN’s traditional and digital media services, while also having an opportunity to be more involved in doing creative work for clients, she says.

“I brought him on as a consultant last year,” and decided to offer him a regular paid position, she says, adding that she expects he’ll become part owner of the agency.

The other major change at QUINN over the last year and a half has been the addition of full audio and video production, including an audio room and a video studio with a green screen and infinity wall.

Quinn says, “Integrating traditional and digital media requires creating spots that will work in both worlds. Having our own production capabilities ensures we can control both quality and budget for our clients.” 

The agency occupies a 4,500-square-foot building at 727 W. Garland and employs 13 people in a mix of full- and part-time positions, and hopes to double that workforce over the next five years, she says. It has clients throughout the U.S., but a majority of them are in the Spokane area, she says. Its current and past clients have included Gus Johnson Ford, Huckleberry’s Natural Market, Trading Co., Budget Car & Truck Sales, Mustard Seed, Noodle Express, and Inland Northwest Bank, to name a few.

“We just picked up Jewelry Design Center. We’re very excited about that,” Quinn says.

The business dates back to the 1960s, when Spokane ad agency Sodeburg & Cleveland was acquired by  three of its employees, including Donna Lipe, Jack Farmer, and Gerald Quinn Sr., Bonnie Quinn’s father. The agency later operated for a time under the name Quinn Lipe, a name that still is familiar to many people here, Quinn says.

Lipe passed away in 1994, and she and her brother joined the agency soon thereafter. It has been operating as Quinn Group Advertising & Marketing since 1995. Quinn says her brother, recognizing the early rise of the digital age and wanting to be a part of it, moved to Silicon Valley in 1998, while she remained here and focused on the traditional advertising work. She bought the business from her father in 2005, and says that since then it has won three national awards and many local awards.