The pecan has a reputation problem. Put one on a pie and everyone understands its purpose. Put the same pecan in a gym bag at three in the afternoon and it feels vaguely misplaced, like a tuxedo at a car wash. For the American Pecan Promotion Board, that mental filing error mattered: while 80 percent of nuts were eaten as snacks, only 53 percent of pecans were. The product was fine. The category in the shopper’s head was wrong.
Signal Theory, an independent advertising agency headquartered in Kansas City, built a campaign around that small behavioral snag. “Surprisingly Snackable” did not attempt to improve the pecan. It changed the occasion. One round established that pecans belonged in the snack aisle. Another placed them inside everyday moments. A third made them craveable. The agency reports a 1,474 percent year-over-year increase in return on ad spend, 73 percent new-buyer growth and an 89 percent rise in pecan-snacking category sales.
This is the Signal Theory proposition in miniature: the barrier is often not the product, the media plan or the cleverness of the copy. It is the quiet story a person has already told themselves. Signal Theory’s work is to hear that story, locate the emotional hinge and give the brand a more useful role.
A name for the invisible conversation
The company is younger than its résumé and older than its name. Wendell Sullivan and Al Higdon opened Sullivan Higdon Inc. in Wichita on July 1, 1971. Both came from the aviation world; Higdon had been Learjet’s public-relations director. Vaughn Sink joined in 1972 and joined the company name in 1979. The firm opened a Kansas City office in 1997, and for decades the three surnames - shortened to SHS - carried the business.
Then, in 2019, management removed them. The timing is what makes the change worth noticing. This was not a frantic rebrand after a collapse. The agency said it had more than 170 employees, record profitability and $150 million in capitalized billings. It chose the moment of comfort to become less comfortable.
“Signal Theory” described the work the leaders wanted the firm to do. Humans constantly send signals about intent, identity, belonging and trust. Some are explicit; most are not. A brand sends signals too - through its packaging, pricing, media, language and behavior. The agency’s branded framework, Resonance Branding, combines cultural analysis, social and behavioral science, data and human-centered design to interpret the traffic between the two.
“Humans are intensely emotional - and we make decisions based on how we feel.”Signal Theory’s operating premise
That may sound like a grand theory for an agency that also makes websites and buys media. In practice, it produces very specific questions. Why does a veterinarian interpret “safer” as “weaker”? Why does a fleet manager distrust a tire whose tread looks unfamiliar? Why do cattle producers ignore claims about feeding the world? Why does dairy disappear from consideration after breakfast?
What failed first was the sensible pitch
Consider Michelin’s X Line Grip D truck tire. The company had spent two decades making a strong-performing drive tire, then introduced a better one. Fleet owners still resisted. The new tread looked different, the engineering sounded complicated and the old belief that tires are more or less interchangeable was wonderfully convenient. A conventional launch could repeat the specifications louder. Signal Theory diagnosed a status-quo problem.
The agency paired Michelin with Adam Savage and the Tested channel for long-form films inside Michelin facilities and on wet roads. Savage was useful not because he could recite a claim, but because his public persona is built on delighted scrutiny. He could make complex engineering easy without making it flimsy. The supposedly unfashionable long format produced 795,000 streams, 40,500 watch hours, 17,000 direct engagements and more than 500 comments.
The Merck Animal Health work followed the same logic. Competitors in cattle health tended to talk about either feeding the world or the science of production. Research suggested neither fully resonated with producers. Signal Theory focused on the producer’s work, lifestyle and legacy, with science supporting the emotional recognition rather than replacing it. The campaign delivered 16.6 million impressions and, according to the agency, a 79 percent increase in monthly page views.
The agency hiding inside the specialist
Signal Theory calls itself full service: strategy, research, brand systems, creative, content, public relations, media, analytics, web work and immersive experiences. Its client list reaches from SONIC and Chili’s to John Deere, Bose, Elanco, Cargill and International Truck. Yet its advantage comes from being unusually opinionated about where those services matter. The agency narrowed its focus around food, agriculture, animal health, restaurants, retail and adjacent B2B worlds - categories full of habit, technical detail and inherited trust.
The range of execution can be comic. For California dairy, Signal Theory drew a bowl of cottage cheese doing weight training, turning protein and wholesomeness into an answer for the afternoon crash. The campaign reported 7.06 times top-line return on ad spend and 19.92 times ROAS for Instacart shoppable-display ads. For John Deere, it built a 45-second harvest game in augmented reality. Players cleared 28,000 virtual acres and engagement reached 220 percent. For National Geographic, it put phone users on Everest; the filter generated 4 million captures and 872,000 shares.
These are not products in the software sense. Signal Theory sells judgment and execution through retainers, agency-of-record relationships and projects. Its closest alternatives include global integrated shops and specialist independent agencies in food and agriculture. Its defense against both is the same: category fluency deep enough to spot the habit, plus a broad enough studio to turn that insight into packaging, a film, a media plan, a pop-up or an AR game.
What a marketer can steal
The copyable part is not the name “behavioral science,” which is easy to borrow and easier to misuse. It is the order of operations. Start with an observable behavior, not an audience adjective. “Fleet owners distrust a tire that looks different” is useful. “Fleet owners value reliability” is wallpaper. Next, find the emotional benefit that the product can honestly deliver: confidence, relief, recognition, control, belonging. Then choose a messenger and medium that can prove the claim in the way the audience naturally makes decisions.
A four-question brief worth copying
- What are people doing that contradicts what they say?
- Which habit or social cue keeps the old choice in place?
- What feeling can the product credibly change?
- Which behavior - not just which impression - will show that it worked?
There are limits. Emotional framing cannot repair a weak product, and behavioral language cannot substitute for real customer contact. A trusted creator works only when the creator is free to inspect. A specialist agency’s advantage shrinks when the assignment depends on markets it does not know, or when a client wants a fast volume of assets rather than a reframed problem. Signal Theory’s own successes are strongest where the product can survive demonstration and the audience has a durable habit worth understanding.
The firm is now 55 years old, led by co-CEOs Ali Mahaffy and John January, with offices in Kansas City and Wichita and roughly 125 to 130 employees. Recent assignments include Virbac, Andy’s Frozen Custard, DRI DUCK and a brand refresh for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Its media has changed from the age of Learjet publicity to augmented reality, shoppable ads and long-form YouTube. The pecan problem has not. People still carry little categories in their heads. The work begins when somebody notices the item filed in the wrong drawer.