History
Robert Lamons & Associates was established in 1984 as a marketing communications consulting firm. The company was expanded in 1986 to a full-service business-to-business advertising and marketing company.
That's the official, for-the-record copy. What really happened was that Bob Lamons was employed in 1981 as director of marketing communications for Conoco Chemicals. DuPont came along and bought Conoco, and Bob's job started to go away one piece at a time. In 1984, DuPont spun off most of its original Conoco Chemicals division as a leveraged buyout called Vista Chemical Company.
Rather than lose his job entirely, Bob negotiated a deal with his managers to devote half of his time to Vista Chemical and the other half to a new consulting venture called Robert Lamons & Associates. That worked nicely for two years until several of Bob's RL&A clients started offering him more work if he would "staff up" to handle it.
So, in 1986 with Houston going through a disastrous downturn caused by collapsing oil and gas prices, Bob signed an office lease, bought furniture and office equipment and hired several associates. It just goes to show what you can accomplish if you don't know you're not supposed to be able to accomplish it.
Vista Chemical and Conoco Specialty Products (the remaining piece of Conoco Chemicals retained as part of Conoco), were the agency's first clients.
Throughout its history, RL&A has served a variety of large, medium and small clients. At one point, Bob thought he wanted to create a large business-to-business agency, competing for clients from coast to coast. Then he realized the larger the agency, the further he got from the strategic and creative work he liked best. He became a "goodwill ambassador", hand-holder and new business specialist.
So today, the agency is small by design. The company, however, is big enough to handle billion dollar, multi-national manufacturing companies, as well as a nice assortment of small software and service firms.
The key determining factor is quality of relationship and quality of work. (Do we enjoy this client, and will they allow us to do good work?)
And, of course, can we count on them to pay their bills?
RL&A has consistently produced breakthrough creative programs based on solid marketing strategy. We've done it for clients of all sizes and shapes. And we've demonstrated our communications skills in a wide variety of markets, for products and services that involved complex technologies and purchase patterns.
If history is any indication, we can do the same for you.