By the late '80s PDP was posting impressive billings of $50 million -- an annualized growth rate of 20%. And the ADDYs and Effies -- awards for creativity and marketing distinction, respectively -- were piling up. From 1980 to 1989 PDP won more than 1,000 awards.
For Pringle the recognition was undeniably appealing -- she was invited to the governor's office for an outstanding-citizen commendation, named top communications woman of the year by American Women in Radio and Television, and featured on the cover of Atlanta Woman. By the end of the '80s she was serving on 31 outside boards and committees and living next door to the likes of Arthur Blank, cofounder of Home Depot, and Russell Umphenuer, the largest franchisee of Arby's Restaurants in the world. When asked by a local reporter whether she considered herself the Mary Wells of the South -- referring to the revered founder of the New York City agency Wells Rich Greene BDDP -- Pringle smiled and replied, "No, I consider Mary Wells the Jan Pringle of the Northeast."
No one could argue that she hadn't come a long way from the housing projects of Phenix City, Ala., where she had grown up. She was seven when her father deserted her mother; young Jan started working odd jobs to help support her family. One source of income was her voice. By age nine, she was singing on local radio and doing opening acts for the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. A gifted athlete as well as a striking blonde, she was voted most athletic in high school and a runner-up in the Miss North Carolina beauty pageant. Having grown up with a mother who had only a fifth-grade education, Pringle entered the local college with such a poor grasp of English that she says "it was like a second language." Despite that, she graduated with honors in business administration.
Pringle was 27 years old when she first opened her public-relations firm, and a year later she went into business with her husband to form PDP. She still remembers the year she opened her business as "the happiest year of my life." When she turned 50, last year, she and her husband celebrated the birthday as "the 23rd anniversary of her 27th year."
Pringle, like many owners, has always felt one with her company. Her victories are the firm's victories, her missteps PDP's failures. "How can I separate the company from me?" she asks. "Since the beginning it's been a reflection of our ideas, our beliefs, and our hard work."
Sure, there was stress. Despite the marquee value of having, for example, a McDonald's on the client roster, working with large accounts was often a tough, thankless job. "There was never any appreciation of the hard work we put in," Pringle confides. "It was always, 'What have you done for me this hour?' " She missed the partnership shared and the appreciation expressed by the small accounts in the early days.
But if that was the price of success, so be it. After all, while small agencies like PDP were being gobbled up by their larger brethren, PDP remained independent. As for the added stress, Pringle considered herself a leader able to "juggle many balls in the air at the same time." Her day typically began at 7 a.m., with breakfast with either a client or one of the many outside boards she served on. By 8:30 a.m. Pringle was at her desk, on the phone, madly scribbling notes, making her way through 40 to 60 calls, while winding her way through 10 or so meetings daily. By 6 p.m. she was either scrambling out the door for dinner with a client or ordering takeout and preparing for a late night at the office. Either way, she usually didn't roll up to her Sandy Springs home much before 10 p.m.
But as the company grew, Pringle and her husband seemed unable to share credit. Although their employees played integral parts in key campaigns, few of them felt financially compensated for their roles. Employees felt unappreciated, and many left. "The talent PDP assembled was incredible, and the talent they let go was equally incredible," says Jeane Cartwright Aydlotte, an advertising account executive who was one of those who left. "In advertising you're only as good as your people; Jan and Jim forgot this." And with employee turnover running high, at almost 50%, employees allege, clients felt a lack of continuity, and many took their business elsewhere. In the mid '80s, Aydlotte recalls, PDP's clientele was turning over at least every two years; the industry norm is seven years.
It didn't help, either, that Jim Pringle, PDP's creative genius, was being tugged deeper and deeper into administrative tasks. "Our strength had always been that we didn't do cookie-cutter work," Jan explains. "I could see that losing Jim's creative leadership was putting that in jeopardy." One industry observer says that in the mid to late '80s, as Jim stepped further and further away from creative control, PDP "seemed to lose its creative brilliance." Jan worried about the loss but also felt hesitant to tell her husband how to manage his side of the business.
