DC Advertising
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DC Advertising, or D.C. Advertising, is a marketing company located in Downers Grove, Illinois. According to their website, a man by the name of Derek Colantonio founded the company in response to existing demand by local businesses for "a more effective, personal and results-driven marketing approach." [1] The company supposedly serves such clients as the Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates and Minnesota Timberwolves as well as a host of restaurants, movie theatres and entertainment facilities. DC Advertsing is part of the Smart Circle International family of companies. DC Advertising is also part of the world wide marketing company known as DS-MAX.
[edit] Controversy
Many allegations have been leveled by former employees and employees-in-training with DC Advertising that the company engages in consistent misrepresentation of what kind of a business it really is. It is a commission only paying job which translates into a pyramid scheme making Colantonio and his "managers" all the money. It is door to door sales and employees have to cover all their work-related expenses including hotel rooms and gas for their vehicle.
As of May 2007, Derek Colantonio consults full time, where he 'impacts' offices but never goes into the field to do work himself. Currently he resides in Atlanta, Georgia with Justin Cobb, Ashley Luther and Jack Bertok.
[edit] Copy Cats
Some familiar with online job matching services such as www.careerbuilder.com have noticed that DC Advertising is not a unique company, but rather just one of many similarly-structured operations around the United States and the world. Several strong indications suggest that DC Advertising models the same growth model as Victory Promotions [2] and Blush Promotions or that all are subsidiaries of the same parent company. Probably the biggest indicator of this connection is the fact that both companies have the exact same testimonial from a supposed client on their websites, which reads as follows:
"We have seen an increase of between 6 and 13% since the cards began being sold. We did not need to wait for guests to begin using their new cards either, they started coming in within two days of being sold. As of this date my store is still running the highest increases over last year in our company." [3] [4]
Despite this, neither website acknowledges any connection between the two companies, lending credence to the suggestion that each company is independently owned and operated much like the franchising model.
