Rebound propels AtLarge to expansion

Seven years ago when he was just 23, Anand Pallegar found himself confronting a challenge he never expected to face.

A car accident left him blind and unable to care for himself, but he felt he was lucky to even be alive.

As his eyesight was restored and he became self sufficient again, Pallegar — who had moved from the United Kingdom to Detroit before relocating to Sarasota — opened and sold a restaurant within 18 months. He took profits from that sale to fund AtLarge Inc., an advertising agency focused on using the Web for branding.

“I think there’s been a shift, an economic shift, that has created more scrutiny to find out what’s working and what’s not online, and finding ways to provide ROI metrics to it,” Pallegar said. “That’s something we do on everything a company is working on: e-mail, Web site, display advertising or even search engine advertising. If you can calculate very easily what the return of investment is on things like that, it’s the type of information that is very valuable to company stakeholders and can help make real decisions based on marketing data.”

Community involvement

Although the economy may be challenging, Pallegar said he’s picking up new clients on a regular basis. He has 10 people working out of his Sarasota location, and expects to have to add at least three more in the next quarter.

“A large part of what we’ve done is focus on technology innovation,” Pallegar said. “We have a number of technologies that are proprietary to us. We’re not a company that just builds Web sites, we invest in the strategic side of what the Web can do.”

Pallegar has profited from a variety of ventures, including his restaurant, an online technology news publication he sold to a Sarasota newspaper, and now AtLarge. The underlying variable that has helped with each time has been simple, Pallegar said: community involvement.

“Our personal philosophy has always been to be involved in a community which I live, and wanting to make a difference,” he said. “Not only does that give something back, but it also really helps us drive brand recognition to a degree.”

Because of that, Pallegar has worked with events such as the Sarasota Film Festival and the Sarasota International Design Summit, and has expanded into the Tampa area by becoming a board member of the Tampa Bay Technology Forum.

Along with that, the most important detail Pallegar shares with clients is accountability. By creating metrics for rate of return, AtLarge provides tangible evidence of its work and the value. That makes it harder for clients to decide to cut his services from their budgets, even in tough times, Pallegar said.

Right for the market?

Saying it is results driving, AtLarge markets itself by partnering with clients to uncover more about their audience.

It might seem to be a given that companies would want to know the types of people who are visiting their sites or seeing their ads, but it’s not as common of a request as some might think, said Ben Lee, a principal of marketing agency Schifino Lee Inc. in Tampa.

“More people from our standpoint are more interested in spending their money targeting the right people, not on whether or not the right people are coming to their site. If you target the right people in the first place, then the right people will come to your site.”

Whatever a client’s motivation, Pallegar said the future looks great for AtLarge.

“What is great about us is that we don’t specialize in any particular industry or any particular vertical,” he said. “Even if there is not a great financial gain, if it’s something that will forward our skill sets and it’s going to be fun, then it will eventually bring us the kind of recognition that we’re looking for in the marketplace.”