Scott Brunjes remembers sitting next to his 8-year-old daughter at Yale-New Haven Hospital as she had yet another blood transfusion. “She had had chicken pox and a very high fever, so I took her to the doctor,” Brunjes said.
“Something didn”™t seem right and they did some blood work. That”™s when they found out Carly had leukemia.”
The shock couldn”™t have been greater. Only five years earlier in 1993 Brunjes”™ first wife had died from a rare and very aggressive cancer. She was only 32. Now their daughter was fighting for her life. The leukemia, Brunjes said, “didn”™t present much in the way of symptoms prior to the chicken pox, but it suppresses your immune system so that something like chicken pox can kill you.”
Carly went through a lengthy hospitalization “and during that time she had many, many blood transfusions,” he said. “I remember sitting there thinking, ”˜Here”™s my daughter with a bag of red blood pumping into her arm, and there”™s an organization dedicated to collecting this blood. People are giving their time and my daughter is a direct beneficiary. This is saving her life.”
The transfusions and the two-and-a-half years of treatments did save Carly”™s life. “Thank God, she”™s well today and considered cured.” But the memory of those dozen or so life-saving Red Cross blood transfusions stuck in Brunjes”™ mind. “When things settled down and Carly was well and I could get back to work, I became a board member” of the Western Connecticut Chapter of the Red Cross in Danbury, where he heads the local chapter”™s marketing committee ”“ which is right up his alley.
Thanks a lot
When Brunjes was 12, his family moved from Long Island to Brookfield, where he graduated from high school in 1981 before attending Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. “I was the first one of my family to go to college,” he said. He graduated in 1985 with a degree in communications and media arts, which reflected a childhood passion. “My two passions growing up were radio and flying,” he said. “One became a vocation, the other an avocation.”
He earned his single-engine pilot”™s license shortly after graduating from WestConn and for a time did traffic reports for radio station WINE in Brookfield. During college he had worked part time both at the airport in Danbury and the radio station, where he was a DJ. “My air name was Scott Barreta,” he said in his non-radio voice; his radio inflection being “a little voicier than I”™m using now.” Being both a pilot and a DJ “started with dreaming,” he said. “When I was a kid, I used to watch the planes fly over my house in Long Island on their way to JFK airport. And I listened to ABC.”
Back then the radio station played the Top 40 hits, and DJ”™s with names like Harry Harrison and Dan Ingram and Ron Lundy captured his imagination.
But reality proved to be a bit different. “When I got out of college, I was offered a full-time on-air position, but I was actually making more money working part time at the airport and Radio Shack than full time on the air.” Instead, “I got a job in radio sales. I still wanted to stay in radio, but I didn”™t have the talent to build a life as a DJ. You have to love it. It”™s kind of ironic that every time you turn on the microphone you”™re talking to thousands of people but you”™re all alone. I”™m a people person, so it was kind of boring.”
He stayed in sales for 11 years from 1985 to 1996, working his way up to sales manager for the station and the group of local radio stations the parent company owned. “Then the new owners came in and said, ”˜You did a great job, but we don”™t need you any more. Thanks.”™”
Google growth
Brunjes used his severance package to start his own media-buying agency he called Mediassociates Inc. “I moved to the other side of the desk,” he said. “Instead of selling media, we buy media. For example, if our client has a million-dollar media budget and wants to reach mothers with kids between the ages of 5 and 12, we figure out the best media to reach them, and when they”™d be listening or watching or reading. Then we negotiate the best deals on behalf of our client.”
Brunjes had remarried and moved to Ridgefield, where he launched his new business and almost immediately landed a couple of clients he had business relations with while at WINE. One of them, Auto Finance of America in Danbury, refinanced auto loans, “and I thought it was a great idea that had legs, so I started working with them doing their advertising buying. We did a lot of radio, TV, billboard and newspaper, and helped them grow into a multi-, multi-million dollar business” before it was sold.
Within two years Brunjes moved his business out of Ridgefield and to a small office in downtown Danbury on the CityCenter green, then moved next door to the historic Swift meatpacking building at 1 Ives Street, where Mediassociates had taken over most of the third floor. “We”™ve got 14 people now,” he said. “We can put one more person in this place, and then we”™re done” and will have to move once again.
Mediassociates has about 35 clients with media budgets ranging from $200,000 to $12 million, Brunjes said. “We do a lot in health care marketing, financial services, retail and higher education.” Most of the clients are not local, although he does work with WestConn, the New Milford Hospital in Litchfield County, and has worked with St. Vincent”™s Medical Center in Bridgeport, he said. “Most of our business growth has come from beyond this area.”
He attributes the growth to Google, of all things. “Before Google was making money, one of the guys here discovered the Google Web site and we started playing around with it for ourselves and clients. We realized this was a pretty incredible opportunity, a very efficient and measurable marketing tool. We deliver your message to people who are actively seeking information about your product or service, and you only pay if they take action. You can”™t get much more efficient than that.”
Last year Mediassociates”™ revenues were up 53 percent, Brunjes said. “The year before, they were up 38 percent, 35 percent the year before that.” Revenues, he said, “are in the millions.”
Ongoing battle
Brunjes has taken that business expertise to the local Red Cross chapter, where “it”™s a constant struggle to get the message out and make people aware of all the Red Cross does locally and get people to donate locally.” Local chapters receive no support from the national office, which raises millions of dollars every time a disaster occurs, he said. “The Red Cross was the vehicle for Katrina donations, and they raised millions and millions of dollars, which flowed through the local chapters. None of it stayed, and the chapters don”™t get any government funding or national Red Cross funding. Most people don”™t know that.”
It”™s the local chapter that responds to local crises like fires, he said, providing “any kind of disaster assistance in the 17-town region” the Danbury chapter covers. Despite that, “they struggle and had to let some people go last year,” he said. “I feel like I”™m really helping to create a clear picture of what the local Red Cross chapter does and the fact that it needs local financial support. We”™re getting there, but it”™s an ongoing battle.”
