STANANDLOU MARKETING/ADVERTISING

Growing up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, everyone knows of Lou’s affection for farm animals, high-altitude cow-chip throwing and synchronized swimming, but nothing could prepare us for the 1998 STANANDLOU Christmas card.

Lou had never worn pink before and, quite frankly, surprised everyone. They thought he would wear his bunny outfit.

Stan just couldn’t stay away from his pals at STANANDLOU and reunited with the gang to make ads. While in meetings, it was said that things like, “you complete me,” and “you are the wind beneath my wings,” were overheard. No one knows who said what to whom, but we do know that Stan and Lou made some great ads for Coastal Corporation during this time.

In other, more important news, Lou’s family grew by one, when he and Rie welcomed little Elena Congelio into their family. She quickly took over the Congelio household and Lou’s heart.

In other, less important news, the STANANDLOU softball team were league champions.

In 1996, the Stan half of STANANDLOU left the agency for a job with one of STANANDLOU’s largest corporate clients. Stan Mays was offered the top advertising job at Coastal Corporation and now Lou would have to be nice to Stan and stop calling him “Coffee Boy.”

Now the sole captain at the helm of STANANDLOU, Lou kept on making ads and moving forward. Many new, super-creative agency names floated around, like “Lou’s Advertising Agency,” “Ads By Lou,” and “Lou-rific Communications,” but nothing seemed to stick. So STANANDLOU remained.

And “& Lou” just didn’t look right.

Read the Houston Business Journal article announcing the split.

When STANANDLOU moved into their new digs over on North Post Oak Road, the staff quickly discovered that the previous owners had left a very expensive, and very large, Duncan Phyfe conference room table behind.

Observing the 24-hour rule established for leaving food in the office refrigerator, the table quickly became the property of STANANDLOU. Admiring the rich color and beautiful grain of the five thousand dollar table, Lou remarked, “Let’s paint it.”

And so the famous STANANDLOU conference-room table was created. The creative talents of local artist, Chris Mayes, were used to transform the once conservative and valuable table into a priceless conversation starter more representative of the kind of thinking and work done at STANANDLOU.

Clients and children love the bright colors. Lou likes it because it’s shiny!.

The year is 1994.

Lou gets a haircut.

Rie gets a husband.

And Lorena Bobitt is found not-guilty by reason of insanity on charges of mutilating her husband!

Later that year, Lou hits Cal Ripken, Jr. over the head with a bottle in an AdventureWorld TV spot…

Cyndi Lauper sings for “Santa’s Village Theme Park” …

…and Reggie Bibbs stars in, perhaps, a public service commercial for the ages.

Each spot is guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye…one way or another!

As co-chair of the 1993 Annual Houston Addy Awards, Lou was faced with quite a challenge – how to avoid another marathon award show with hundreds of awards to give out and still make it entertaining. Lou and fellow co-chairs decided to change up the format, nixing the live presentations, showing only gold Addy winners and listing other recipients on a screen.

Lou, as quoted in the Houston Chronicle: “We had to do something. If this doesn’t work, we’ll try something new next year. But we can’t stay with the same stale formula.”

But the new formula ticked off a few folks in the Houston ad community. One Houston ad agency boycotted the show and did not enter any work.

Amidst the controversy of the boycott, the evening was still a success, thanks in part to Lou’s great presentation and a quick-witted video produced by STANANDLOU that featured Harley riders, bar-flys, Houston advertising big-wigs, and a Kwik Kopy manager announcing awards.

We, at STANANDLOU, just like our creative leader, still like to break the mold, or at least do something new and different before the mold starts to grow.

In 1992 STANANDLOU reached the pinnacle of creative success when one of their billboards was pulled for being too controversial. The outdoor board (seen on the left) was taken down after a few weeks amid complaints from members of the community who called the boards “offensive” and “sexual.”

STANANDLOU and the client realized there might be objections, kind of, but knew that their hearts were in the right place and felt that they had to push the limits of creative communication to raise awareness of a very important issue.

And, also, that any type of publicity would be good and add to the millions of impressions generated by the board.

Not to worry, we’ll send you another email tomorrow to keep you abreast of the important events and goings-on over the last 20 years of STANANDLOU.

It only took a few years before the team at STANANDLOU was living the glamorous life of the ad world, making big time TV commercials on-location with hot-shot directors, big budgets and red carpets!

STANANDLOU was hired by Franklin Federal Bancshares, a financial institution headquartered in Austin, TX, to write and produce TV spots. The young agency sought out world-renowned directors and rock stars of commercial production, Jeff Bednarz and Gordon Willis, to lend their talented hands to the projects.

The result: great concepts flawlessly executed.

“This is a great opportunity for us,” quipped Lou, sporting a black beret, dark glasses, and sipping a martini, “Working with such great directors, working in Austin, you know, really pushing the creative envelope, and living the life.”

“And after a long day on the set, back at our adjoined rooms at the Super 8, the Brut flows every night until the pool closes at 9:30 and then we party all night, until about 10:45, and then we just pass out. I doubt those ad superstars in Hollywood or New York do it up like we do.”

We doubt it, too.