Beyond the City Limits

The last thing you see as you leave Vigilante's offices in Soho, a bustling, fashionable neighborhood in lower Manhattan, is a sign that reads, "Last vigilante standing: Hit the lights. Bolt the doors (both). Watch your back."

Hit the lights? Makes sense. Bolt the doors? Sure. But Watch your back? It's a call to vigilance that complements other "inspirationals" on the walls of this busy workplace: "Always empty the clip." "Strategy is the craft of the warrior." "Vigilance in combat means keeping one's eyes wide open." This is not the headquarters of an urban SWAT team or a secret government operation. It's the headquarters of Vigilante, a young ad agency that's part of Leo Burnett.

Why Vigilante? "We wanted a totally aggressive name that would make people a little nervous and that would express our vision of doing business," explains Danny Robinson, 40, cofounder and chief creative officer. "Plus, you've got to admit," says Marc Stephenson Strachan, 40, cofounder and chief marketing-and-operations officer, " 'Vigilante' sounds much better than 'Robinson & Strachan.' " The name also fits the agency's mind-set. "Vigilantes get the job done first and ask questions later," says Strachan. "We know that we're doing something wrong if our clients' palms aren't sweating, if they're not a little hot under the collar, if we're not occasionally shocking them."

Among the high-profile clients that Robinson and Strachan have shocked are Johnnie Walker Black Label, Major League Baseball, Nintendo of America, and Sprint. How has this small firm attracted such big names? By cracking the code of urban culture -- by understanding the people who live it, make it, move it, and change it. To arrive at that understanding, Vigilante deploys an "Urban Think Tank," a consulting group that uses a collection of services -- with names like "Street Spies," "UNITE" (urban intelligence through empathy), and "Urban Passport" -- that both explain the urban market and immerse clients in it.

One crucial point about urban markets: Robinson and Strachan don't consider "urban" to be a euphemism for "minority." Cities, they say, are "magnetic epicenters" -- hot zones from which influence flows to the social mainstream. By understanding urban markets, you can understand, capture, and create other markets. "Urban centers are not niche markets," says Strachan. "They're home to a critical mass of consumers who live, think, and act differently and who affect a larger whole -- and force you to recalibrate your approach to them."

Fast Company recently visited Robinson and Strachan, who provided a short course on some new realities of urban marketing. In the main article, Strachan describes the ideas and techniques behind the agency's work. In two sidebars, Robinson and Strachan explain the theory and practice of some recent client engagements.

Urban Does Not Mean Minority

To 9 out of 10 people, "urban consumer" means "black or Hispanic." One of the things that we help people understand is that "urban" does not mean "minority." What annoyed -- and excited -- Danny and me when we first started our agency is that most marketers tend to think of urban consumers as being young blacks and Hispanics. We'd look at the streets of New York and ask, "What about all of the gay people? The older people? The Asians, the Russian immigrants, the white folks, the religious zealots, the women dressed head to toe in Prada?" During a heat wave last summer, ABC used what it called an "urban heat index" to broadcast the temperature. Was that index just for African-Americans and Hispanics?

The way you begin to understand the power of cities -- as their own market and as a force that shapes other markets -- is to understand the three Ps of city life: population, prevalence, and pervasiveness. Regarding population, big cities are becoming home to a bigger and bigger share of the world's people. By 2015, the number of so-called megacities (urban centers with populations of more than 10 million) will grow to 26, compared with 14 in 1995.

As for prevalence, roughly half of the world's people already live in urban areas, and that figure is expected to increase to 60% by 2030. In fact, every week, more than 1 million people worldwide move into urban centers. The growing prevalence of megacities means that they are extremely important to marketers in all kinds of industries. Over time, there just won't be as many traditional suburban consumers as there used to be. People are streaming into urban centers in droves -- so we'd better start thinking about how people in cities live and act. It used to be that when people retired, they would flee to the suburbs. Now retirees are returning to the city. Suburban empty nesters are looking for the energy and stimulation of city life.

The third P -- pervasiveness -- is the most important of all. The power of urban consumers extends far beyond city limits. Urban consumers are always looking for the next big thing. They're the folks who set trends and force people outside the city to look at the world a little differently. One of my colleagues was in Charles De Gaulle Airport, in Paris, where he said he saw a six-foot-two-inch guy from Korea wearing Perry Ellis sneakers, Polo jeans, a FUBU sweatshirt -- and carrying a Discman. When my colleague asked him what he was listening to, this guy (who couldn't speak a word of English) pulled out a CD. It was Biggie Smalls! That's what I mean by the pervasiveness of urban culture today.