New Creature

In the late 1990s, the in-store marketing needs of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and its vendors created the business opportunity that Patrick Sbarra and Brad Jones needed.

Sbarra, president, and Jones, executive vice president, launched New Creature in 1999 to create in-store marketing displays just as point-of-purchase advertising was becoming an integral part of the retail structure.

New Creature has since grown to 18 employees and more than $10 million in sales.

“The reason New Creature exists is to help other people sell more stuff,” said Sbarra. “Our original five employees and current 17 know that as long as we are helping others create cash flow, we will always have an opportunity to do the same for ourselves.”

Sbarra likens northwest Arkansas in the ‘90s to the California Gold Rush a century and a half earlier, with Wal-Mart representing the gold and its suppliers being the prospectors.

“New Creature was established to provide the prospectors with the picks and shovels they need to harvest the gold,” he said. And that largely entails making the point-of-purchase in stores more attractive, including the design of pallet displays, trays, fixtures and signage for brands such as Disney, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Coleman and General Mills, among many others. New Creature also oversees projects from inception to design to manufacturing to distribution.

“You have three seconds to make somebody want to buy your product,” said Sbarra. “We’re here to make every fraction of those three seconds count.”

Though Wal-Mart and its Sam’s Club division and many of their suppliers make up a large portion of New Creature’s business, the company also targets suppliers to other retail chains like Costco and Office Depot. New Creature also helps local businesses not directly associated with Wal-Mart that are looking for strategic marketing advice, like Mercy Health System of Northwest Arkansas, which hired New Creature as its advertising agency of record.

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