PRINTBrent Beshore: The Pure connector
CEO owner, Pure Marketing & Media
David Kennedy
The Joplin native left graduate school at MU to pursue his career.
November 12, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Age: 26 | Time spent in Columbia: Five years
Brent Beshore motivates others with high-fives. He especially enjoys delivering them to his 24 employees at Pure Marketing & Media, where unexpected movements occur almost as regularly as coffee drinkers take bathroom breaks.
- Eduardo Crespi: The reluctant leader
- Lynn Maloney: The queen of pins and needles
- Granny's House: The home away from home
- Ben Gakinya: The art enthusiast
- Richard King: The man behind the scenes
- The Road House: The home-grown food gurus
- Philip Peters: The achievement gap overachiever
- Teresa Maledy: The go-getter
- Mike Martin: The community investigator
- Leigh Lockhart: The green thinker
- Maureen Dickmann: The progressive pastor
- Stefan Sarafianos: The HIV slayer
- KOPN: The radio rock-stars
- Mike Cooper: The nature-lover
- CAT: The local TV outlet
- Making waves in a landlocked state
Technology. Social media. High customer demands. These changes have left ad agencies out of breath and trying to catch up. Pure is no exception — except it keeps adding rather than eliminating hurdles. Redefining the limits of an advertising firm, Beshore is competing not only within the marketing arena but also with entertainment companies, Web developers and research firms.
He started Pure with Erik LaPaglia in February 2008 and became the sole owner this month. Beshore doesn’t think employees with audio and visual skills should only produce commercials. This philosophy led to Arable Entertainment, a Pure subsidiary that produced a White Rabbits music video and the feature-length film 10 Hours a Week.
Beshore continues to dissect Pure into more units that serve marketing clients and other loosely related projects. The Insight subsidiary provides research and data collection, and Verity Interactive will soon offer Web and new media development. More break-outs are expected as Pure reinvents.
“What we are and what we provide today should not be where we are in a year,” Beshore says.
Wearing a striped button-down that reveals a patch of chest hair, Beshore could be mistaken for a cell-phone salesman. That is, until he explains his management style. He admits he has an ego, but one that translates into confidence instead of a power trip. He’s a connector of talent, not the company’s best marketer. Inside Pure, hierarchy isn’t so important.
What outsiders wonder is how Pure has been successful in such a downer economy. While his wife works toward her Ph.D., Beshore logs 10 hours a day, six days a week, depending largely on how hard the golf bug bites. He tries not to sound arrogant when explaining it as common sense. He only hires employees who can identify themselves as “rock stars.”
Beshore left graduate school at MU to start his career. He has 30 to 40 clients, including Maude Vintage and D&H Drugstore. But he won’t identify his Fortune 500 customers because some companies request anonymity to keep their primary ad agencies happy. As far as money goes: “You can’t take it with you. But you can use it to influence change.”
The Joplin native affects change through nonprofits such as the Good Hope Educational Initiative and United Way. He’s also part of an entrepreneurial movement where he meets with business owners to brainstorm how Columbia can attract and retain talent.
“If we link together and provide collaborative — not competitive — environments, we could accomplish lots of cool things,” Beshore says. Things cool enough to earn a high-five.
Pure/Arable Demo Reel Fall 2009 from Pure Marketing & Media on Vimeo.
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