When the Breeders’ Cup comes to Keeneland for the first time at the end of October, it will be more than just the running of the World Thoroughbred Championships. An entire weeklong food, music and arts festival in Lexington will give race fans and other fun-seekers plenty of options.
Local advertising executive Kip Cornett — along with his eponymous ad agency — is spearheading the festival, which will resemble the Spotlight Lexington downtown festival held during the 2010 World Equestrian Games, only better, organizers promise.
Experience in this particular category and knowledge of the players involved in the racing spectacle helped Cornett land the assignment.
“Our firm has worked with Keeneland for 25 years,” says Cornett. “I already knew people at the Breeders’ Cup, like Bob Elliston [executive vice president and chief operating officer].”
When Keeneland decided to pursue the Breeders’ Cup, it leveraged the creativity of Cornett’s agency to woo decision-makers. And Cornett’s experience in programming a festival “kind of teed up the chance to be chairman of the Breeders’ Cup host committee and then to put together this latest festival,” he says.
Beyond creativity and experience, Cornett’s civic-mindedness also came into play: His agency is doing the work pro bono. Cornett called that an easy decision.
“I felt I’d have been derelict in my duties as a citizen and a communications professional if I didn’t go all in,” he says.
Cornett’s agency has a staff of 53, which he said freed him up to lend his time and energy to Breeders’ Cup week.
Cornett and the city know the stakes are high. Success is almost mandatory, with the return of the premier races and other large events riding on the city’s — and Cornett’s — execution.
“It’s important to not only get the Breeders’ Cup to come back here but to show other national and world events that this is how Lexington does it,” he says.
Born in “the metropolis of Hazard,” but with nary an Eastern Kentucky accent left, Cornett moved to Lexington 50 years ago, when he was 11. Dad was an accountant in the coal business; mom, a homemaker.
“It was a culture shock coming from a small town,” he says. “There was a period of adjustment, but I liked the city enough to go to the University of Kentucky.”
He earned a bachelor’s degree in general studies, joking that the major helped him avoid math (more on that later). He also took courses in journalism and creative writing.
When did he know he wanted to be in advertising?
“It was when I was mucking stalls on a horse farm in the middle of July, and it was extremely hot,” he says. “I read a want-ad that said WKQQ Radio wanted a copywriter.”
He wrote some demo radio commercials, and they liked them enough to hire him. That was 1980.
A few years later, Cornett opened a tiny Lexington advertising agency. Among his first clients were “Thoroughbreds and waterbeds.” A Thoroughbred owner himself since 1984, he’s currently in partnership on four horses, one being Season Ticket, who ran at Keeneland this spring.
Early on, Cornett was confident of his creative abilities but knew little about business. That’s where his lack of math skills returned to haunt him. Initially, he didn’t worry about making much money, instead trying to extend his creative wings. The agency was all over the board signing new clients. He realized in order to keep the business afloat he needed to focus.
In the mid-1980s there weren’t many local ad agencies working with the Thoroughbred industry.
“We began to think we should represent one client or brand in a category,” says Cornett.
Then the Keeneland account came along. Today the agency better understands what type of clients the staff works best with. Cornett borrows a saying by UK basketball coach John Calipari: “University of Kentucky basketball isn’t for everybody.” The same is true in the ad game: Find clients that are the right fit.
Besides Keeneland, Cornett’s current client roster includes A&W, Buff alo Trace, Eagle One, UK, Lane’s End Farm, Valvoline, VisitLEX and Toyota.
Cornett’s website carries the tag: “Not Scared of Commitment.” The average length of time with a client is 12 years, he says.
“We’ve learned to avoid clients that change agencies every year or so,” he says. Success came because “we moved the needle for some clients and helped them reach their objectives, or I’m sure they would have kicked us to the curb.”
The ad field in Lexington when Cornett began in 1984 included big players such as Meridian Communications with Mary Ellen Slone; Jordan Chiles with Jim Jordan and Larry Chiles; Ad Success with Paul and Sharalee Scanlon; and Group CJ with Connie Jo Miller, among others. In recent years several of those agencies have closed.
“We’re very different from all of them. I’m not saying better, but different,” Cornett says. “Our model is built more on service than commissions. Our account base is small. We’re not everything to everybody.”
Cornett acknowledges that during the recent economic recession the company lost 60 percent of its value. It wasn’t a mass exit of clients [they lost one that was sold] but clients simply spent much less.
“We decided not to gut the agency, and now our billings are the best they’ve ever been,” he says. Cornett has a young staff , with an average age of about 27. The leadership team is in its early to mid-30s, with “a few gray-hairs, like me, that have been through the wars.” Cornett believes that with the changes in media buying and social media, more than likely your best people “are those who’ve grown up with it, as opposed to me.”
Cornett says he grew up in an era of three TV networks, no cable and no Internet. But there’s value in his experience and creativity.
Asked if he had watched the TV series “Mad Men,” Cornett says he has lived it every week. It’s the same whether its 1960 or 2015. He noted similarities in the chemistry with clients and why you work with one and stop working with another.
As Cornett looks to the future, he expects to be around as long as he provides value to the company and clients.
With characteristic understatement, at least when talking about his own work, he says: “I see that happening for the next few years.”