Summer-Fall 2001
Dave Floren: Thinking outside the bag
Photo by Diana Watters
Just back from a trip to the Boundary Waters, Dave Floren (B.A. '64 journalism) is the picture of quiet contentment. For a few months now, he's been reading good books and spending time with his family and, he muses, "getting my head up, looking around, and figuring out what I want to do next."
Although he retired April 30 as president of Martin Williams Advertising, Inc., Floren expects the next phase of his life to include more than golf outings. He may not yet know what his next mission will be, but he believes that "when the time comes, I'll know."
Little in his laid-back demeanor would suggest his highly successful 37-year career, which culminated in the 1996-97 School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) Alumni Award of Excellence. In the professional community, he is considered one of Minnesota's most respected and influential advertising executives.
Floren would have you believe it's all been serendipity. When he came to the University in 1960, he says, he was a "kid who wandered out of the cornfields of Beeker County," with no particular goals in mind. He soon realized that he would either sink or swim on the enormous campus. And so he decided to get serious.
Then, he says, a friend "told me that journalism had the fewest graduation requirements." Lo and behold, Floren discovered that he liked journalism, especially advertising. As chance would have it, the school also happened to be among the highest-ranking journalism schools in the country.
After graduating from the U, Floren went to General Electric, where he worked as a copywriter in the company's advertising management program, in "garden spots like Cleveland and Schenectady." He returned to the Twin Cities in 1966 and in 1968 began at Martin Williams, a fledgling company with seven employees. When he retired, the number had grown to 335--a remarkable record of growth in a notoriously cutthroat business.
Although he is widely believed to be the primary engine of that growth, Floren is modest about his role. "If you hang around long enough, you survive," he says. "I was extremely lucky. I worked with brilliant, wonderful people."
He also encouraged a business culture that promoted both business success and a family life away from work, a philosophy that amounted to being committed to "two diametrically opposed ideas" at the same time, he says. And he kept his finger on the public pulse. "The audience will tell you what to do," says Floren. "You do the research and you find out what they're telling you. There's no deep and dark mystery. We just scramble to keep up with what consumers are telling us."
Enter the University.
"Basic, critical thinking is the primary skill you need," he says. "Technology--which has changed the ad business enormously--has accentuated that. If a client comes to you with a problem and you can't think your way out of a paper bag, you're in trouble. The U taught me how to think things through, how to think strategically. There's no replacement for this. If you want to go into this field, my advice is to go to the U. Get as broad a liberal education as possible."
Floren sees his gift to the SJMC as "payback ... on an investment in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) and journalism. I realize now, but didn't know then, that the education opportunities laid before me were extraordinary."
These days, advertisers must be constantly on their toes to get through to their audiences, Floren believes. "Consumers are savvier, more intelligent. They adopt a filtering process that is ever more difficult to get through. So your message has to be really creative, really on target."
And the biggest challenge today? "Finding qualified people," Floren says without a moment's hesitation. "I'd look for someone with enormous curiosity, someone with a broad liberal arts background. You're ahead of the game if you rest on a broad foundation. The other stuff you can pick up."
Meanwhile, "it was time" to take a sabbatical, says Floren, whose six children include two still in elementary school. "There's an old Norwegian proverb that says you shouldn't keep a dog and bark yourself. If you're the CEO, you should have been raising a generation of managers to manage without you. Besides, after 37 years with my head in the harness, I really did want to take a year and kind of raise my head and see what else is going on."