New Hires Raise Profile For Whats Ahead

What’s Ahead LLC, a retail marketing agency in Bentonville, recently announced two new hires and a new approach that will play an important role in the company’s future.

Company founder and CEO Rex Warr has announced the acquisition of a local company in order to support What’s Ahead as a fully integrated shopper marketing agency.

The owner of the acquired agency, Jay Thornton, has joined What’s Ahead with a senior leadership role, as has Alex Patterson, who has more than 20 years of experience in Northwest Arkansas in the communications and shopper marketing space.

Thornton, who joins the agency as head of digital, was most recently the owner of Cusac & Co. He was also a founding member of what is now a multimillion-dollar company, Rogers-based Collective Bias, and also worked for Moxy Ox of Springdale.

Patterson, the agency’s new head of sales, previously worked for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Saatchi & Saatchi X.

Her career also includes seven years as president and CEO of Bentonville-based marketing and public relations agency AMC Communications Inc. Most recently, she worked for Integrated Marketing Services in Bentonville.

Warr, who left a job with marketing and advertising firm PromoWorks in Bentonville to found What’s Ahead in 2008, said the two hires signal a strategic addition for the company that will bolster its service offerings for clients.

What’s Ahead produces content to help suppliers doing business with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Warr said the agency has worked with more than 100 different suppliers through the years, and What’s Ahead has experienced double-digit growth in total revenue year over year since 2010. 

“We have always been a solutions agency,” Warr said during a recent interview at the company’s downtown headquarters. “Before, we focused more on specific tactics. Now, we’ve opened up to more of a digital and social [media] capability, and also expanded our creative side.”

Warr referenced a study conducted by Shopper Marketing magazine earlier this year that said consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies cite shopper marketing as having a significant impact in driving incremental sales and volume, while increasing retailer support.

“Reaching the shopper where she’s at with contextually relevant messaging through unique and innovative communication is our agency’s key differentiator,” he said. “With these hires, What’s Ahead is positioned to offer fully integrated in-store, social and digital marketing solutions.”

Kao USA Inc., a manufacturer of premium beauty care brands including Jergens, Ban and Curél, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based Kao Corp., has been working with What’s Ahead for a couple of years.

Jeremy Charlesworth, based in Cincinnati as the company’s senior business development manager, said Kao has utilized several in-store advertising programs through What’s Ahead to reach consumers and drive sales, mainly with pharmacy bags and product signage at the front entrance.

He said measuring the return on investment from those programs is difficult, but termed them successful.

“We have a good relationship with [What’s Ahead],” Charlesworth said. “It’s more of a partnership in a sense that we are both trying to win.”

Marketing Mystery

No one loves a secret — and the curiosity that comes with it — more than Warr.

That’s why you won’t find any formal signage on the brick-and-glass facade of the downtown Bentonville building that houses What’s Ahead. Just a question mark logo hung over the front entrance.

Warr, who grew up in the Oklahoma Panhandle in the small town of Guymon, came to Northwest Arkansas to attend the University of Arkansas and has remained here ever since, having worked in the area for two decades.

He said having a downtown Bentonville address — What’s Ahead was previously located on 22nd Street in Bentonville — was an idea he had explored for some time.

Warr, 39, purchased the 4,590-SF building on West Central Avenue for $800,000 in November 2013, then spent an undisclosed amount — Warr said the total restoration cost was comparable to that of new construction — to gut the two-story structure, re-creating the building into one of the more unique workspaces in Northwest Arkansas.

The company officially relocated its headquarters in June.

The renovation lasted more than a year, and Warr used the time as an opportunity to create brand awareness for the company, which has incorporated a question mark into the What’s Ahead logo since its founding.

Question marks were seen in the second-floor windows during the building renovation, but few other signs of the mystery tenant’s identity were visible.

Since downtown Bentonville is heavy with foot traffic, the interest only grew until June 5, when the question mark sign was hung over the front entrance, formally signaling a new resident for the bustling downtown square.

 “I’m sure at some point I may put the name on the building, but we did that on purpose,” Warr said. “It really makes people want to look inside and find out who we are and what we are doing.

“It’s hilarious to see the forehead prints all over the front window.”

There’s a lot to see in the new headquarters of What’s Ahead, including a large and fully stocked bar on the first floor, a vintage Airstream travel trailer-turned office space in the back, and an old-fashioned barbershop chair left over from one of the building’s previous tenants, Gene’s Barber Shop.

The attention to detail impressed Patterson, who noted that the question mark logo is engraved into every table and desk throughout the building.

“When I was interviewing, that’s the one thing that really struck me,” she said. “The finite level of detail really spoke to me and said, ‘This is the kind of agency that is going to pay the same level of attention to our clients.’

“You immediately felt a culture of innovation. Whatever we need to do to ensure that we deliver to our clients, that’s what we’re going to do.”