PhenomBlue a Partner to Top Agencies
By Chet Mullin, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
Nov. 1–PhenomBlue is steadily making a name for itself outside its hometown of Omaha.
Even if you’ve never heard of the company, you probably have seen its work in commercials for sleep-aid Rozerem. PhenomBlue artists created the puppet and animation for the beaver that, along with Abe Lincoln, talks to the insomniac about benefits of the drug.
PhenomBlue, which also has offices in Montreal, is not an advertising agency, said its president, Joe Olsen, 28, although it is a technical partner for a number of the nation’s leading ad agencies.
Olsen and Jimm Wagner, 29, the firm’s director of production and a graduate of the Mesmer Animation school in Seattle, recently sat down to discuss the company and its goals.
“It’s best to think of PhenomBlue as a technology partner of advertising agencies and corporations,” Olsen said.
Ninety percent of the firm’s work is for advertising agencies in Chicago or on the East and West Coasts, he said. The remaining 10 percent is for corporations.
The company has created or supplied animation for a number of Web sites, said Wagner, such as animation for D-Link’s Medialounge optimizer, which wirelessly connects a PC to a television and a stereo.
The firm also contributed work to the campaign for Actos, a drug used to treat diabetes.
Among the larger ad agencies that have used PhenomBlue’s work are Abelson-Taylor, which hooked up with Olsen and Wagner for the Rozerem ad, Tribal DDB, and Arc Worldwide, all of Chicago, and Crispin Porter out of Bolder, Colo., Olsen said.
PhenomBlue, which employs eight people in Omaha, is in the Image Arts Building at 2626 Harney St. but plans to move to a larger, 3,500-square-foot space in Regency Center in February.
Olsen and Wagner, who decided to work together if the opportunity arose, met while working at Vente Inc., an Omaha firm that specialized in gathering consumer data for e-mail marketing. Vente eventually was acquired by Experian.
Olsen says PhenomBlue, which they created in 2004 as a limited liability corporation, did $200,000 in business in 2006. It is on track to hit $1 million in billings this year, and plans are to double that next year, he said.
The Omaha office works on development, producing software, doing programming and coming up with interactive solutions, Web sites, games and multimedia programs for productions.
Meanwhile, the company’s 12 full-time artists, working in its studio in Montreal, develop the artwork based on the requirements of ad agencies’ projects.
“All of our artists are ex-film and ex-broadcast people, experienced in feature films and computer graphics,” Olsen said.
Olsen said one of the reasons that the firm is catching on is because it provides creative services “front to back.”
Some firms offer the technology and farm out the artwork, but PhenomBlue does both, he said.
The company also is thriving because of low overhead costs in Omaha, he said.
Olsen, who attended Iowa State University, Metropolitan Community College and Bellevue University, said he expects to add seven or eight positions next year as the firm grows. The PhenomBlue had relied on “word of mouth” to grow its business, Olsen said, but recently hired a salesman to market its services.
The company, however, remains essentially an unknown in its hometown. A recent project with Bozell is its only local contract, Olsen said.
Many companies think of PhenomBlue as an ad agency, instead of a technology partner, Olsen said.
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