After six months without an agency, Lake Oswego-based Flowerbud.com has hired Nerve Inc. to oversee its $ 7.3 million advertising campaign, which will debut in mid-July. ... 'Our goal is to be the passion brand,' said Traci Hill, Nerve's account supervisor. 'We're going after a more emotional target — the passionate, soulful person who recognizes the role flowers play.'
—Kristina Brenneman, "Flowerbud hopes to bloom under Nerve's watchful care," Business Journal-Portland, April 21, 2000

This development illustrates a much bigger sea change within the sponsorship industry: new forms of passion brands are seizing the high ground over brand emotion. The sand is running out for the decades-long attempt to "add" emotional values to unemotional products. A 30-40-year detour in the history of marketing theory and practice is coming to an end.

The difference between the new passion brands and brand emotion is that passion brands don't start with a functional product and then attempt to wrap a layer of added emotional attributes around it. The product itself is the emotion: excitement, fun, a sense of belonging, a belief, a cause, a social occasion. Passion brands give meaning to our lives directly, not as an afterthought, making most traditional brands' attempts to add emotional value look pale, insipid and artificial.
—Alan Mitchell, "Core passion displaces emotion-added brands," Marketing Week, September 2, 1999

Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners West has tapped Harry Groome, co-founder of Odiorne Wilde Narraway Groome (now Odiorne Wilde Narraway & Partners), as account director.

"We love Harry's integrity and passion for great advertising," said Nigel Carr, managing partner and general manager of KB&P West. "Our goal is to grow the agency by finding more passion brands' that have heart and soul . . . Harry is a find and we're lucky to have him help us."
—Jane Irene Kelly, "Groome's Goal: Grow KB&P West," ADWEEK, JUNE 15, 1998