"cross The Water Wednesday" is a feature focused on highlighting some of the cool work, agencies, and events going on in St. Paul. If you know of any St. Paul goodness, deserving of a feature, shoot us an email at: mpls@theegotist.com

NADA: Nick Tews, Nathan Nerland, & Daniel Williams-Goldberg Star Tribune

Nathan Nerland and Daniel Williams-Goldberg left Caribou Coffee to start the type of agency that a neighborhood shop or small businesses could afford. Which led them to create the St. Paul-based NADA Advertising in 2004. The full-service agency offers website, print, and social media services, including branding, advertising, design, and development. "Daniel and I have endless ideas," Nerland said. "We take such ownership over everything we do that we thought we also might as well go out and use those ideas for our own good."

NADA has three employees, with 10 independent contractors rounding out its services. Each founder serves as relationship manager for his own roster of clients. But they collaborate on high-level project decisions and strategy. Revenue was on track to hit $600,000 this last year. NADA operates virtually, to run as an efficient, lean agency that's affordable to small-business owners. The agency started in a small office on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, then moved to downtown St. Paul. But they gave up the fancy, glass-walled digs to stay lean.

Although they've never met face-to-face with more than half their clients, they have all the work they can handle thanks to repeat business, referrals, and their own marketing efforts. They communicate with clients throughout the country, from Chicago to New York and California using Skype and other online tools, including a proprietary Virtual Office site where they share work with clients. The virtual move came just before the recession, as did a well-timed push to diversify NADA's client base. The agency, which had been heavy on clients in real estate and development, used online marketing and networking to develop new business in health care, restaurants, professional services, and media.

Now, as the new year approaches, Williams-Goldberg and Nerland are preparing to expand. They're considering how to redefine the agency, their own roles and whether to continue operating virtually as they consider making a hire or two. One goal is to do more project-based rather than hourly work. They also would like to license their Virtual Office tool to other agencies and photographers as the first of what could become a number of NADA products. "We've talked about not adding or not reducing but maybe focusing a little bit more on some services," Williams-Goldberg said. "We're so good at design, we're so good at website development and we're so good at print, maybe we'll focus on those three areas and just totally expand those but still be the full-service agency for the clients that want it."

NADA Advertising Website Still

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"What I Learned in 2012" is a series focused on sharing a few nuggets of wisdom from some of the top ad and design people in the Twin Cities. Here is what they've learned and what they're thinking about in the coming year.

Joe Duffy
Founder/Creative Director
Duffy & Partners

2012 – 2013

I must admit, as I sit here on the first day of 2013, I’m hesitant to reflect back positively on the year just past. First and foremost, I don’t want to jinx the coming year—dwelling on past success seems to me a good way of limiting things to come. My byword has always been, “Onward!” I rarely look back.

Having said that, I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize the accomplishments of an amazing group of people that I have the good fortune of working with on a daily basis. They are, without question, the best team I’ve ever had the pleasure of developing design with in my 28 years of leading this company. The design they created in this past year (most of which will be unveiled in the first quarter of 2013) is the best annual body of work I’ve ever been involved in. I want to thank them for making this my best year in the design business in every respect.

I certainly can’t say it’s been all about us. If it weren’t for an incredible group of clients, we couldn’t have had the year we’ve had. They are clients who know full well the true power of design; who realize that their audiences—audiences that span the full range of demographics and geographic boundaries—have subscribed to the notion of “a designed life.” In their everyday lives, they look to things small and large to help define them as unique individuals, which is the real essence of design. It’s also what makes what we do so special and satisfying. I want to thank the D&P clients for their confidence in what we’ve done with them this past year.

The real evidence of a successful 2012 will come in this New Year. It’s one thing to create work you’re very proud of, and another to witness its success on the shelf – “the proof is in the pudding” My confidence is higher than ever and if successful work begets more opportunities to succeed, 2013 should be better yet. That’s my confident Irish nature speaking—hopefully it will be combined with a good dose of Irish luck.

Here’s to a better and brighter creative year for all of us. Cheers!

To market their unique worldwide news programming in Turkey, CNBC-E partnered up with Rafineri to create a series of print ads. The work mashes together the two components of the show, world news mixed with being a world famous series.

"Worldwide News, World Famous Series" CNBC-E - Rafineri