How a flamingo inspired a Minneapolis PR expert to rebrand her Lola Red agency

Alexis Walsko wants to work with clients who are bold, like the giant pink flamingo striding across a downtown street pictured on the website of Lola Red, her Minneapolis-based creative public relations agency.

That imaginative scene reflects the spirit of a firm that’s blossoming after the pandemic as well as a big personal change for Walsko: Lola Red’s founder and CEO is now the single mother of 2 1/2-year-old twins “by choice,” as she said.

The flamingo and accompanying “Be the talk of the town” tagline feature prominently Lola Red’s rebranding, announced at the end of April.

“It was important to turn that page and infuse that energy into who we are today and also what we’re attracting,” said Walsko, who was 22 years old when she launched Lola Red in 2000. “You put a brand out there so that you get customers and clients, and we want to work with people who want to be bold.”

Being bold, Walsko said, increasingly means understanding the importance of influencer marketing. That’s where high-profile social media users work with companies to promote their products and services to an influencer’s many followers. It’s “kind of the new PR,” Walsko said. Lola Red also handles traditional public relations, social media and crisis communication, working with wellness, food and beverage, franchise and technology brands, among others.

“If there is something that has been in our DNA from the beginning, it is caring deeply for our clients and their success,” Walsko said. “That’s how we’ve been able to exist for so long and continue to compete.”

Walsko recalls the initial goal of Lola Red’s work with client Pocketalk, a device that translates 84 languages, being simple: Get the device into the hands of international travelers. Then, when the pandemic largely halted travel, Lola Red helped Pocketalk reach new customers in health care, education, government agencies and first responders.

“Our responsibility to them and for them is to tell the story of how being able to communicate from person-to-person in a person’s home language is part of equity and inclusion,” Walsko said.

Without that pivot, Pocketalk “may or may not be around or may be so much smaller,” Walsko said. “That is the power of the work that we were able to do.”

Now, Lola Red is handling media relations for “Star Wars: Unlimited,” a new tabletop game from Asmodee, a France-based company with North American headquarters in Roseville. In 2016, Lola Red helped launch a toy version of Star Wars’ popular BB-8 droid.

“It’s proceeding out of that Star Wars/pop culture knowledge that we have,” Walsko said of the firm’s work on the new game. “Our responsibility is national and international for them in terms of press but also to bring a light to this cool company that’s in our backyard that is creating these games and creating opportunities for people to work.”

Walsko shares more about her work and life in the following interview, edited for clarity and length.

When we were going through this exercise, a designer put a piece of artwork, a gigantic flamingo on a beach, into one of the mood boards. And I was, like, I love that. I don’t know why, but it makes me laugh. It sticks out.

I also happened to be in an interesting personal space. I recently had had twins. I had seen something online saying that when flamingos have babies, they lose their pink for a little while. And that made sense.

I had just gone through this big life change and responsibility change, and I kind of felt gray. We were at the tail end of COVID, we went through — and this happened almost everywhere — the Great Resignation, the rebalancing, remote work, hybrid work, how people show up and what they expect of work. All of these things made the workplace a little gray. I didn’t feel so inspired in work.

It took me about 18 months to come through that. And when I did, which was when we really started to think about the rebrand nine months ago, I was like, “Get that flamingo! I am back. I feel motivated. Let’s do this!” I felt like I had my fire and my pink back.

[The flamingo] seems fun, but it also seems like kind of putting a stake in the ground and saying, “OK, this is who we are today. This is how we are moving forward.” But also, a reminder of what has always stood out about our company, which is care and connection and relationships.

Early on, one of our clients said, “Does this mean that it’s going to replace your jobs?” And I’m like, “I don’t think so.” You can’t replace people and some of the things that people can do. Yet, for me, ChatGPT is like a gift to just start anything because for me, that is the hardest part. And if I can use tools like that to start something, it helps me to then use my skills to finish.

A significant part of our business is influencer work. We are engaging with micro- to macro-influencers to talk about our clients. It’s not just an influencer partnership. It’s a brand ambassador partnership. Creating long-term relationships so they are mutually beneficial.

It also helps to create more authentic content than one-off engagements. You can automate the whole thing. There are software services and agencies that do that. There are tools that we do use to source people. But full automation is not the most successful way. It doesn’t create the relationship that really serves a brand best.

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Lake Elmo. His e-mail is todd_nelson@mac.com.