Ace Hardware selects OKRP as strategic and creative advertising agency
Ace Hardware, the largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative in the world, announced today its choice of Chicago-based O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul as its strategic and creative advertising agency following an extensive review.
OKRP will be charged with continuing to enhance and differentiate Ace through its strong brand promise of helpful service, quality and convenience across all consumer channels.
“Ace has stood for best-in-class customer service for more than 90 years and looks forward to teaming up with OKRP to continue owning helpful with DIY consumers for the next 90-plus years,” said Jeff Gooding, Senior Director of Consumer Marketing, Ace Hardware Corporation.
“We met with many quality agencies during our review and OKRP set themselves apart in a variety of ways. Their insights and straightforward, no nonsense creative fits well with who we are as a brand and how we communicate to our target audience,” explained Gooding. “Beyond that, the entrepreneurial spirit and will to win that OKRP possesses matches perfectly with Ace’s culture and the thousands of independent Ace store owners across the country.”
“During the pitch process, we experienced first-hand the difference Ace’s personal touch and attention to detail can make,” explained Tom O’Keefe, CEO of O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul. “We’re extremely proud to be their new partner, and are excited to help them grow their business in new ways, while staying true to the bedrock values that have made them such a great brand.”
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For more than 90 years, Ace Hardware has been known as the place with the helpful hardware folks in thousands of neighborhoods across America, providing customers with a more personal kind of helpful. With more than 4,800 hardware stores locally owned and operated across the globe, Ace is the largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative in the world. Headquartered in Oak Brook, Ill., Ace and its subsidiaries currently operate 17 distribution centers in the U.S. and also have distribution capabilities in Shanghai, China; Panama City, Panama; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Its retailers' stores are located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and approximately 60 countries. For more information on Ace, visit www.acehardware.com.
About OKRP
Chicago-based O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul (www.okrp.com) is a new model advertising agency that delivers big agency brand creativity with startup ingenuity. With its belief that success as a new model agency relies on the ability to be nimble and to bring together the best talent for its clients, O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul has practiced the “high art of selling” on behalf of clients such as Big Lots, YUM Brands, Ace Hardware and Turtle Wax, among others. The independent agency is supported with minority backing from the Interpublic Group of Companies.
