BAR: POCKY’S BAR
KarshHagan Advertising, 2399 Blake St., is an unlikely front for a speakeasy. But when you pass through the lobby, you enter a bar/playroom with a sign that screams “Pocky’s” hanging from the wall. It’s Pocky’s Bar, with a foosball table, six stools at a curved bar, a TV, some snacks, bottles of booze, beer in the fridge and a small ice machine. Seems that Pocky Marranzino’s dad, also Pocky, was a legendary Rocky Mountain News columnist who also briefly owned an eponymous bar in downtown Denver. That’s where the sign came from. And of course, KH actually is an advertising agency, a big one, housing 45 employees in 12,000 square feet. The bar is there just for fun. A red arch inside the building separates the Creative Department from Intern Alley, telling the gang to “BE DISRUPTIVE.”
GRILLED: POCKY
Pasquale Marranzino Jr., a.k.a. Pocky, is a Colorado advertising stalwart, co-president of KarshHagan with Kathy Hagan Brown, daughter of the firm’s co-founder, Tom Hagan. Marranzino is a third-generation Denverite from a proud line of civically and politically active Marranzinos. Born at Mercy Hospital, Pocky went to Regis Jesuit High School and Regis University, topped by a mass-communications degree from the University of Denver. He started in advertising in 1972 — in the mailroom of Frye-Sills, then the region’s largest ad agency. He became an account exec, moving to KH in 1982, the year it won the lottery, literally, as it rolled out the game’s first Colorado campaign. He sold the agency in 1999 and took it back in 2009. He pours himself a Ketel One on the rocks with an olive.
BH: What do you think of “Mad Men”?
Marranzino: I watch it, and it’s pretty much the way it was back then and in the ’70s. We had the same kind of offices, the IBM Selectric typewriters. It was kind of a wild time.
BH: How is it different today?
Marranzino: We don’t have three-martini lunches anymore. And clients are more demanding in terms of ROI — what they’re getting for their buck. And the whole interactive social-media thing, Twitter, Facebook, the mobile landscape, has changed everything. Thirty years ago, if you were a national advertiser you could buy a TV schedule and buy eight magazines and reach 65 percent of the country. That’s passe. Now it’s about engagement and relationships.
BH: What about newspapers?
Marranzino: Newspapers are still one of the best ways to reach a large audience. The Denver Post still has huge numbers on Sunday. People aren’t reading newspapers the way they used to, but it’s still a useful tool. I don’t think newspapers will go away, but I see more iPad newspapers coming. You might see dailies go to three days a week.
BH: Why do ad agencies always have pool tables and pingpong tables and bars? We don’t have that at The Post.
Marranzino: I learned a long time ago that creativity is a form of play, but that’s not to say it isn’t stressful. We like freedom. We want to give people the opportunity to think outside the box.
BH: But you were never into the creative side of this business?
Marranzino: I can come up with big ideas, but I am not an artist, and I’m really not a writer. I am creative in my own way. I am a good strategist. I can cut to the chase, but facing a typewriter all day was not my thing.
BH: So what do you do?
Marranzino: Right now, I’m like a football coach. I have to put the football players on the field and call the right plays. This is the ultimate team sport.
BH: Is your Italian heritage important to you?
Marranzino: My father raised us to have a close family. We always had big Sunday night dinners. I remember there were so many people in the house. Everyone was welcome, so many people that the windows would get foggy on a cold night. My dad would cook on Sunday night. I do it, but not religiously. My wife, Lisa, is not a good cook. She makes soup. I fix spaghetti.
BH: Where do you live?
Marranzino: Cherry Hills. I’m the only guy in the neighborhood who cuts his own lawn. It’s nice there, a beautiful view of the mountains. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and went to the window and looked at the moon setting. I mean, that was great.
BH: What’s your idea of perfect happiness?
Marranzino: A cigar, 85 degrees, a golf course and dinner with my family.
BH: What do you fear?
Marranzino: Getting cancer again. I had prostate cancer in 2006. So I ended up having an operation and, knock on wood, if I make it to Aug. 6 of 2011, that’s five years, and after that you are supposed to be OK. It was a real wake-up call.
BH: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Marranzino: Travel. I am very cheap with most things. I clip coupons to save 25 cents on a tube of Crest, and then go spend $450 on a room at the Four Seasons. My wife, she doesn’t understand that.
BH: What’s your current state of mind?
Marranzino: Since I had cancer, I have learned how to live every day as today. So today is a good day because I am still here, the sun’s out, and no one has yelled at me or hit me today.
BH: What do you consider an overrated virtue?
Marranzino: Patience. One thing (a friend) said and I always say to my people, “Let’s quit stirring and start painting.” And I love that. You can get into analysis paralysis. I mean, let’s go, let’s do it.
BH: What quality do you like in a friend?
Marranzino: Trustworthiness. I am trustworthy. I do what I say I’ll do.
BH: Is there a word or a phrase you overuse?
Marranzino: I’m a sports nut so I say things like “Skate to where the puck is going to be,” and “Quitters never win, winners never quit.”
BH: What talent would you like to have?
Marranzino: I’d love to have been a pro golfer. Here’s the deal. You’re probably taller, you’re at the best places in the world, the prettiest places in the world, and you’re making a lot of money. I mean, how bad is that?
BH: What would you change about yourself?
Marranzino: Sometimes I rush to judgment.
BH: Do you have a mission statement here at KH?
Marranzino: Have fun, make money, and do good work. And of course we want to build our clients’ business.
BH: What do you consider the lowest depths of misery?
Marranzino: Being dishonored.
BH: Are you a beach guy?
Marranzino: I am a variety guy. Lisa and I like to explore, have different experiences in different places.
BH: What book are you reading?
Marranzino: “Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser- Busch.” My favorite book of all time is “The Right Stuff.” This is a crazy business, and sometimes it makes no sense, so you have to have the right stuff.
BH: Movies?
Marranzino: My favorite is probably “2001: A Space Odyssey.” But I didn’t understand the ending.
BH: I don’t think anybody understands the ending or the beginning. What wouldn’t you eat, even to be polite?
Marranzino: Tripe, brains.
BH: What about restaurants?
Marranzino: Denver is not a mecca for Italian food, but it’s gotten a lot better. Maggiano’s does a pretty good job. My favorite restaurant here is Del Frisco’s. I am not a big meat eater, but when I eat beef, I have to go Del Frisco’s.
BH: What’s your biggest regret?
Marranzino: That I didn’t go work in New York when I was young. I had a chip on my shoulder. I was from Denver. It’s like I was a good adman, but I never was in the big time. It would have furthered my career, and I would have had a big name on my resume.
BH: You did fine, Pocky.
Marranzino: Yes, I did fine.
BH: How would you like to die?
Marranzino: On an 18th hole somewhere, with a cigar.
BH: Motto?
Marranzino: Nothing happens until something is sold.
Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Bill Husted: 303-954-1486 or bhusted@denverpost.com.
