Dr. Lance Bell - President and CEO

LGB, LLC's founder did his first trade show at the Paris Nord Exhibition Center in France in 1976 (while still in his teens) followed by his next show outside of Dusseldorf, Germany the same year. His decades of involvement have given his company significant insights into how to successfully execute and create value for the companies LGB represents. The key to a successful show is the proper formulation and execution of a brand story. It is not about the booth, the babes or the giveaways. It's about a coherent brand message that shouts loudly from the show floor to communicate with impeccable clarity the whys and how comes of the business. As with the execution of every brand message, it must be analyzed on an organic level. With a constant concern being how to drive traffic, we believe stealing the show with the most creative property on the floor is an opportunity to communicate brand leadership.

Working for technology giant GLOBALFOUNDRIES, LGB organized their worldwide trade show circuit with exhibitions at GTC, Common Platform, DAC, DATE, CASPA, etc.. Their global reach extended from Santa Clara to Shanghai. With a message of openness and collaboration, we selected an award-winning trade show booth which effectively told their brand story thanks to an imposing, suspended overhead truss, measuring 60-feet-long by over 20-feet-wide. With no support structures, it uniquely communicated the brand message that access to their technology was available from anywhere, with no obstacles to entry. The use of 16-foot-high towers delineating the various elements of the ecosystem was further support to the unique elements of their brand attributes. Our use of word clouds along with various other firsts in the technology sector were copied at future shows by others in the industry. Clearly, the sincerest form of flattery.

We created a brand experience for the second largest manufacturer of mechanical vending machines in the U.S.. A private label manufacturer, we had encouraged our client to exhibit their product themselves. What we had found by attending the various trade shows where their customers exhibited their products, was that the products were never showcased in a manner commensurate with the manufacturing excellence upon which the company had built its reputation. This amazing engineering/manufacturing company had been pioneers in innovation, having invented many of the industry's firsts in design and functionality. Their concern was that because they were a first time exhibitor, they would have the worst positioning on the show floor. The question arose as to whether or not to exhibit with a customer of theirs who was the longest-exhibiting customer with the most prime real estate at the convention. When we were asked if they should exhibit in their customer's shoddy booth in the best spot, we responded, 'better to have the best booth at a show across from the bathroom than the worst booth in the center of the exhibition hall.'

In an industry devoid of creativity, we stole the show for our client with the theme of 'the art of vending'. We had great product shots taken by the best corporate photographer in New York and hired an artist to turn them into paintings which were framed in gold frames. The traffic in the booth was twice that of the nearest competitor and it gave the engineers a wonderful platform around which to tell their uniquely creative approaches to the challenges in the industry. There had been a dramatic shift in the vending business from the old days which saw massive machines in factories to current times with mixed use machines in small business offices having such features as non-galling coin mechanisms and modular construction. The shows were ultimately packaged under the brand message of 'creating change for changing times in vending'. A positioning that saw them double their sales in 3 years.

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LGB's president learned of the 32nd NFL franchise from an article in the Sports Section of the New York Times while waiting for a booth with his wife at the Corner Café diner in Saratoga Springs, New York. The article stated that the latest franchise was awarded to Houston at a price tag of $700 million. The NY Times reported it to be a rather steep price considering there was 'no team, no stadium, no players, no fans, no name, and no logo.' Despite rejection from the NFL and Houston NFL Holdings, LGB's

Lance Bell and
Team Owner Bob McNair

Lance Bell, Jamey Rootes, and Bob McNair

There was the selection of the name. The Stallions? The Wranglers? The Apollos? The Texans? Lance Bell made the following case to Bob McNair. Our job at LGB is to protect and grow the value of our clients' assets. With over a billion dollars for the franchise between the team and the stadium, why not start out with the name that harbors the greatest initial brand equity value. We made the case that internationally, for over a century, the image of Texas and Texans was positive with a romantic allure. The name and imagery associated with a Texan immediately positioned the brand as aspirational. No other name under consideration, in our opinion, could come close to driving such initial and long-term brand value as the name the Texans, especially in a state where football is religion. There still was the chatter from the focus groups to wade through. We made the case that the information garnered from the focus groups which dismissed and discounted Western imagery as 'hickish', stating that Houston was progressive, aerospace and medico-technological made one thing imminently clear. "The focus groups are defining a franchise named the Houstonians. The name of the team is the Texans."

Next came some interesting questions with even more interesting conclusions. Another challenge was to determine whether a horse or a bull would represent the face of the Texans. The question was asked, 'who would win a fight between a horse and a bull?' The answer hands-down was a bull. There was a missive created after that meeting stating that the results of the focus group determined that a horse would not be an appropriate symbol for a professional football team. We responded back asking if the focus group participants had heard of a team called the Colts or the Broncos? We wondered what their answer would have been had they been asked, 'who would win the fight between a bull and dolphin?' From the onset of the process, we felt strongly about the name the Texans and the appropriate imagery attendant to it. It was the genius of Bob McNair to think of such an audaciously clever and valuable name. Texans have enormous state pride. To abandon the logical imagery and representations that have been driven down the neurologic pathways of nearly every recipient of the name would be absolute folly. Therefore, we were set on the Texas flag, red, white and blue and a star for the eye. We brought this design concept of the bull 'flag face' through the back door so to speak. We knew there was to be no Texas flag, no red, no white and no blue. We, therefore, presented our bull 'flag face' in purple and raspberry so that everyone would see the design and not stop at the colors. We sent the design idea off to Rodney Richardson, a pivotal player in the process who had worked on the Seattle Seahawks logo. We wanted to bounce it off of him because he had a good gut. As luck would have it his brother had been over visiting the night we sent it and he took a fancy to the design. From that point forward the design had traction and evolved into the icon that adorns the helmets of Houston's players each weekend during football season. One more thing. Bob McNair told Mr. Bell in New York that his marketing group in Houston had decided on the colors for the team ... Battle red and steel gray. To which Bell asked, "what did you name the white?" The response was that they hadn't. To which Bell countered, 'if there is value to naming the blue and the red, there should be value to naming the white as well. You can't buy a white car, its opalescent pearl or starfire pearl. To which McNair responded, 'You're right, we'll name it Liberty white, after my dog.'

When asked if the people in Africa could relate to his music, famed New Orleans jazz musician Louis Armstrong responded, "Cats is cats." We concur, marketing is marketing. Regardless of product or service category, success almost always comes down to the formulation and execution of great ideas combined with a whole lot of common sense. With no prior experience in the Spirits sector, LGB's development of the Old Rip Van Winkle bourbon whiskey brand with proprietor Julian Van Winkle is as priceless as the whiskey itself. The Wall Street Journal recently described the brand as "the most prized bourbon in the world." While on a trip to Kentucky, Lance Bell's father-in-law, Tom Ryder, the #2 man at American Express at the time, had called Lance's wife to have him bring back a bottle of Pappy's 20 year old bourbon to replenish the supply for American Express' board room. A larger-than-life figure in corporate America, Ryder is not only a legend in publishing who sits on numerous boards including the likes of Amazon and Starwoods, but he is a gourmand and close friend and investor with famed restauranteur Danny Myers. Ryder started the Aspen Food and Wine Classic, helped launch the career of Rachel Ray and is an expert on the subject of wine and spirits. He is a serious wine collector whose collections have sold at Sothebys, but most importantly, he is a serious bourbon drinker with an exceptional palate. The obscure bourbon whiskey, Old Rip Van Winkle, had become a favorite in the American Express board room. When unable to find it in New York, that's when he reached out to his daughter to charge his son-in-law with coming back from Kentucky with a case of the little known yet prized bourbon.

Unable to find a bottle of 'Old Rip' in any of the liquor stores in Lexington, Kentucky, Bell found his way to the distillery/bottling facility. After chatting up the owner and buying his case of whiskey for the American Express board room, Bell struck a deal with the distillery's owner to do a specialty bottling for a horse client named Bailey-Ellenberg Select. The horse client had sold Kentucky Derby Winner Thunder Gulch as well as Breeders' Cup favorite Honour and Glory. Because the Derby is run at Churchill Downs in Louisville, where Old Rip Van Winkle's offices are located, we wanted to do something that spoke to exceptional quality having an association with Louisville, Kentucky. The agency created a 'hip flask' bottle of whiskey with a bourbon label of the client's Derby winner under the iconic twin spires at Churchill Downs. The whiskey label read, "The Thunder and the Glory".

On the day of the bottling, the weather overnight turned unexpectedly cold. Because the distillery owner had neglected to turn the heat on the night before, the bottles had been subjected to condensation, causing a very slight dimpling in the labels. After inspection of the first 20 bottles, it was evident that all the bottles suffered the same imperfection. Bell insisted that they remove all 2,500 labels and re-hand glue a second batch of labels on the bottles.

Noticing the well-coiffed Southern women on the assembly line, Bell inquired if any of the ladies were in possession of a hair dryer. Within moments, six hair dryers appeared and Bell along with the women removed the 'bubbled' labels and proceeded to dry by hand all 2,500 bottles. We live by the motto that good is the nemesis of great ... what is not great is not great. After witnessing LGB at its finest, distillery owner Van Winkle asked Bell to take on the Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery as a client in exchange for a piece of the company.

For over 20 years, LGB, LLC's marketing influence on the thoroughbred world has been without equal. A pioneer in the industry, LGB, LLC introduced Madison Avenue marketing to the horse world in Central Kentucky and redefined how value is created in the industry.

The creative team at LGB has established a number of firsts within the thoroughbred business: the first agency to understand and deploy disruptive technology; the first to build websites in the thoroughbred industry - some 18 years ago; the first to use Twitter; the first to advertise on YouTube; the first to use in-banner videos on industry websites; the first to deploy the use of email blasts; the first to develop a landing page to track and convert customers; the first to run full page ads on the back page of the TDN for distribution at the sales (an innovation of the agency developed with the publisher); the first agency to create vehicle wraps on horse vans; the first to run billboards for horses; the first to create a positioning slogan for a horse; the first agency to advertise thoroughbreds in national trade publications such as Sports Illustrated and USA Today; the first agency to work with Keeneland with the deployment of experiential marketing of their sponsorships which included temporary branded transformation of the facility; the first to use holographic imagery for a horse; the first to use airport baggage claim signage; the first to create media kits and press giveaways for future stallion prospects; the first agency to organize agent parties in the launch of a stallion; and the list goes on. If there is an effective, better way of doing anything creatively to enhance the value of a client's asset, we will not only develop the idea, we will know how to sell it effectively to all stakeholders.

We always see the long view in a relationship and believe that the best strategy is when everybody wins. LGB,LLC's thoroughbred projects have been reported on by the Financial Times of London, the Herald Leader, the Louisville Courier Journal, the Saratogian, ABC Sports, Blood-Horse, Thoroughbred Times, Daily Racing Form, the TDN, etc.