A marketing firm headquartered in Michigan’s Great Southwest for over 50 years is growing and adapting to how business is done in the post-COVID environment. As part of that adjustment, JohnsonRauhoff has sold its ‘twin’ headquarters buildings along Lakeshore Drive/Red Arrow Highway (2525 Lake Pines Drive, St. Joseph) and will consolidate operations at the JR Photo/Video Studio at 300 West Britain Avenue, Benton Harbor.
JohnsonRauhoff Chairman & CEO Jackie Huie told MoodyOnTheMarket.com that about half of JR’s 50 employees have been working from home, and the other half work in the Benton Harbor Studio building (a building many may remember as the former location of Frank Pastrick Chevrolet). “So, the Lake Pines Drive building has basically been empty for two years,” said Huie, “It didn’t make any sense to continue that way.”
Huie said JohnsonRauhoff’s business is growing. “We’re up eight percent in sales and 12 percent in number of staff since before the pandemic,” she said. “But we’ve found productivity is way up with our creative and marketing people working from home. So, we plan to continue with that business model.” She said JR staffers are spread all across Michigan and around the country, as far away as Boston.
Meanwhile, the photo and video segment of JR’s business is thriving in the 35,000 square foot former auto dealership in Benton Harbor, which has been a part of their operation for about 20 years. Huie explained that the Studio needs considerable flexible space, higher ceilings and in and out loading capability. She said the original plan had been to create such an addition at Lake Pines Drive. However, it really didn’t fit with the office and residential character of that neighborhood. So, when the necessity of the pandemic forced reconsideration, it became clear that the Benton Harbor Studio location was a real opportunity for JR.
“Our key leadership and administrative team, a small group, occasionally needed to re-connect in person. And we naturally gravitated to the Studio location because our co-workers were still coming in there regularly, by necessity. We quickly realized that we (the leadership team) belonged there, while our creative team was thriving while working from home most of the time and will continue to do so,” she told us.
Huie says Benton Harbor is the perfect location for a creative-based business like JR. “The Studio building has become like a ‘Willie Wonka Idea Factory’,” she told us. JR is adding what she called ‘a creative bullpen’ and a café area, as well as small group space for ad hoc gatherings of employees working together on a specific project that might not lend itself to a virtual meeting. However, she believes Google Meet and Zoom will continue to be everyday tools at JR going forward.
JohnsonRauhoff is a organization that works nationally and even globally in three main areas of focus: Marketing (advertising and product design), Creative Photograpy and Video, and Product Experience.
Product Experience is the specialty from which the agency grew, after its creation by Huie’s father, company founder Don Johnson. Johnson created User Manuals and “How To” brochures for Whirlpool appliances and opened his own company in 1969. Today, JR designs Product Experience materials, often digital, for many national brands including Whirlpool (52 years), LG, Samsung, GE, Lowes, Bissel and Bosch.
The Photo Studio segment of the business came from the ‘Rauhoff’ part of the name: Dave Rauhaff was Don Johnson’s partner in the agency in the 1980s. Johnson later purchased the entire firm but retained the name in respect to his former partner’s contribution to the combined entity.
Huie said the decision to leave the Lake Pines Drive location was a bit emotional for her, because it was designed by her father, and this week marks the one year anniversary of his passing. However, she said she knows that Don Johnson believed what she does: “It’s not about bricks and mortar. It’s about how we are serving our clients, building our team and our own brand for the future.”
JR sold the Lake Pines Drive building to Tri-County Bookkeepers, headed by Phil Hosbein. His plans for the future there will be covered in a separate article on MoodyOnTheMarket.com . Huie had special thanks for Realtor Keene Taylor at Realty Executives for his work on the building transaction.
