Celebrating 100 years in business this year, Beuerman Miller Fitzgerald (BMF) has helped some of the region’s, and nation’s, biggest brands find success — including names like Brennan’s, Tabasco, K&B Stores, Wesson and Coca-Cola. This week, BMF Co-Founder and Co-CEO Virginia Miller joins the firm’s President of Marketing and Advertising Ron Thompson to share their top tips for success, along with which branding lessons continue to stand the test of time.
about
Virginia Miller
Virginia Miller is co-owner and co-founder of Beuerman Miller Fitzgerald. In addition to overseeing business management for BMF, Miller manages many of the firm’s largest marketing, community and media relations and governmental projects, including those in the fields of government, healthcare, law, transportation, education and energy. She is also one of the nation’s most sought-after crisis communications trainers and responders and has traveled the world in that capacity.
Miller has developed a reputation among clients and the national and local news media for her candor and credibility and for her creative and multi-dimensional earned media and creative strategies.
Her brand strategy revolves around her commitment to careful brand definition at the outset, then building and protecting each brand with strategic marketing, proactive risk assessment, and reputation management (crisis planning, litigation support, earned media and strategic digital campaigns) such that any brand’s strength and longevity are enhanced.
A native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans, Miller speaks fluent Spanish and has studied at the universities of Madrid and Salamanca, Spain. She has earned multiple industry awards on behalf of the agency (including Inc. Magazine/Harvard Business School Inner City 100), as well as President Obama’s Volunteer Award. She received a fellowship from the Loyola Institute of Politics and was selected as one of Gambit Weekly’s “40 Under Forty,” and as one of City Business’s “Power Generation,” a Junior Achievement Rising Star, and was inducted into the JA Business Hall of Fame. She is a member of the Louisiana chapter of the International Women’s Forum and is deeply involved in the local not-for-profit community, providing pro-bono services and serving in a board capacity for many agencies over many years, including The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Foundation, Café Reconcile, the Adirondack Mountain Reserve, Lighthouse Louisiana and the President’s Advisory Council of the National Wildlife Federation.
Ron Thompson
Ron Thompson’s formative experience in the advertising business came during the industry’s “Mad Men” era. He joined Fitzgerald Advertising in 1958 and his account management and brand marketing expertise has been extensive in the fields of consumer and packaged goods, hospitality, medical and energy. In particular, his innovations in developing opportunities for extending marketing and creative concepts into the broader community are key to the success of campaigns and programs for many clients, and have included a decade involvement with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Black Church Outreach efforts for TABASCO brand Pepper Sauce in addition to oversight of award-winning ad campaigns for the brand, contracting Saint’s Coach Jim Mora to promote Electric Living for LP&L (now Entergy) and organizing Master Chefs from the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to create recipes for a Regina Wine Vinegar Salad Cookbook which reestablished the brand as No. 1 in the flavored vinegar category.
Thompson is a past president of the Advertising Club of New Orleans and former governor of the Seventh Deep South District of the American Advertising Federation. He is past chair of the American Association of Advertising Agencies Gulf South Region and served on the AAAA Promotion Marketing Committee.
Thompson received the l996 Silver Medal from the Advertising Club of New Orleans for lifetime professional achievement, and the 2001 Crescent Award from Entercom New Orleans as the outstanding advertising volunteer. He has been a member of the Board of Governors for Junior Achievement, the Institute for Human Understanding, led the marketing effort for New Orleans Public Schools’ Partnership in Education, was chair of the American Advertising Federation College Competition for the Deep South District of five states, and chaired Loyola University’s Visiting Business Committee for 10 years. Thompson has most recently been involved in volunteering with the Jefferson Community Foundation through its dedicated Race Equity Reconciliation initiative, Integrative Recovery Therapies (IRT) and its program for mental health therapy and addiction therapy services, and the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute (NOCHI) Cooking for a Cause, a Fundraising Fete to benefit education programs for culinary and hospitality careers.
Today, 68 years after beginning his storied career as a venerated leader in advertising and marketing, Thompson continues to share his experience and insights with his colleagues at BMF, the south’s oldest agency.
He is a native of New Orleans and a graduate of Loyola University.
