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Our History

Norris & Company was founded in 1966 by John F. Norris. Prior to going on his own, he was a Vice President and Account Executive at New England's largest industrial advertising agency. He positioned Norris & Company as an industrial agency and soon landed some of the areas largest manufacturers of Machine Tools, Motion Control Devices, Materials Handling Equipment, and Power Distribution Systems (over 50 years later, Norris & Company is still the agency of record for two of these original accounts).

The company was originally based in Boston, and for many years occupied several spaces in the Statler Office Building. In 1980 during the technology boom, the company moved to offices adjacent to Route 128 in Dedham, MA. That same year, Bill Norris joined the agency serving as Production Manager and later as an Account Executive and Executive Vice President. In 1985, Bill's older brother John joined the business as an Account Executive and Chief Financial Officer. Then, in 1990, Jim Norris joined the group as an Account Executive and Director of Business Development.

For the next 12 years, the father and three sons worked side-by-side, each managing their own accounts, but all leaning on each other for advice, counsel, and collaboration on major projects.

In 2000, Bill, John, and Jim purchased the company and began adding digital marketing services to it's portfolio.

Today, Norris & Company is located in historic Plymouth Massachusetts.  We continue to be a full service agency working closely with our clients to improve all aspects of their selling systems.

From right to left, John F. Norris, Jim Adams, and Dick Metz. Photo taken in 1980.

The following is a statement of the company's principles and philosophy that was written in 1966 and still guides us today.

  1. We do not serve consumer clients but specialize exclusively in working with companies that sell to business and industry.
  2. To make the best use of our strong verbal and graphics capabilities, we place heavy emphasis on planning and strategy. We are interested in working with clients who allow us full access to and involvement with marketing and sales management personnel.
  3. We believe in closed-loop programming with clear objecives, measurements, and feedback tuning.
  4. We are a full service advertising agency, however, we do not try to be all things to all people. We therefore partner with or recommend other firms to assist our clients in specialized disciplines such as exhibit design, market research, focus groups, and packaging.
  5. We respect the intelligence of our clients and carefully consider their suggestions and recommendations regarding campaign planning and specific advertising messages. We will not, however, produce or publish any material that does not meet our professional standards of competence and good taste.
  6. In all our dealings with clients, vendors, publishers and others, we observe the highest standard of ethics.
  7. We believe in task-method, zero-base budgeting rather than percent of sales appropriations.