When Mike Andrews needed advertising for his unrepentantly beef-oriented restaurant J.D. Hoyt's in Minneapolis, he went to one of the top agencies in the country, Fallon McElligott. Normally, the firm handles high-profile, multimillion dollar accounts like Miller Lite, United Airlines, Timex watches, and Coca-Cola. On the surface, there's no reason it would look twice at such a low-budget client. But Minneapolis-based Fallon McElligott not only accepted J.D. Hoyt's business, it gave the steak house $20,000 or so in creative services...for free. Why?

Restaurateur Andrews offered the agency something better than money: creative freedom. ''He said, 'Push the envelope, go wild,''' recalled Robert S. Barrie, the campaign's art director. And that's what he did, producing an irreverent, vegetarian-bashing campaign on a series of posters and billboards with such headlines as: ''We believe in the proper treatment of animals. Which is why we use only the finest sauces.'' The campaign won a prestigious award for the agency, generated publicity, and, most important, helped boost business.

It's one of the best kept secrets of the advertising industry. For the asking, some of its best minds will donate creative services--copy writing, art direction, and design--to clients who let them work without the usual irritating constraints of tight deadlines, censorious executives, and endless committee approvals. Not incidentally, the agencies view these ads as a way to win prestige-enhancing industry awards. Mary Warlick, executive director of The One Club for Art and Copy in New York City, which hosts the high-status The One Show awards, says small clients are particularly desirable because the creative team gets ready access to top decision makers. ''If you have to go through layers, there are too many opportunities to kill ideas.''

Agency largesse is most often directed to nonprofits and government agencies, but private-sector recipients range from dinner theaters to car dealers to law firms. For example, Stephen R. Bergerson, a partner specializing in advertising law at Fredrikson & Byron PA in Minneapolis (and a former ad executive himself), got free help to produce a no-holds-barred ad campaign touting his services in the advertising trade press. One ad read: ''If you think it's too much trouble showing your ads to a lawyer, try showing them to a judge.'' The calls flooded in. ''I went from abject failure to huge success,'' crows Bergerson, who now has over 400 clients.

Bergerson was fortunate to have connections in the ad business. But many more businesses could get help--if only they knew how to ask. ''We'd go crazy if someone came up and said, 'I need advertising and we'll let you do whatever you want,''' said Tom Amico, a senior vice-president at Wells BDDP in New York. ''That's what we would call a dream client.'' Amico's sentiments are shared at agencies of all sizes, particularly those with a creative bent, which donate services usually for print media, sometimes for radio, and rarely, TV. A look at one award show turns up ads produced at little or no cost in Charlotte, N.C., for The Cigar Bar at Arthur's (''Telling intolerant little people to go to hell doesn't necessarily require words''); in Chicago for Oscar Isberian Rugs (''Allah is in the details''); in St. Louis for Hunan Garden (''Which would you rather have at our restaurant, good English or good Chinese?'').

As part of the deal, the businesses usually buy the ad space or time and cover other associated costs, such as printing. But in some cases, small cash-strapped businesses pay nothing at all.

There are some caveats. For one, control freaks need not apply, since creative freedom is key to the whole process. And unfettered creative directors may well produce ads that are controversial or flirt with bad taste. The J.D. Hoyt campaign, for instance, sparked picketing by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. (That was just fine with Andrews: It reinforced his slogan of ''a restaurant for carnivores.'') Also, if you're in a rush, be careful. Paying clients usually come first.

How do you hook up with an agency? Usually, it's copy writers and art directors--''creatives'' in industry parlance--who seek out businesses to fit their concepts. For example, Brent Ladd, a creative director at Austin-based GSD&M, whose clients include Pennzoil, Wal-Mart Stores, and Southwest Airlines, happened to shop at tiny Rootin' Ridge, where husband-and-wife owners Paul and Georgean Kyle sell handmade wooden toys. ''We are such a small business that any kind of ad program is beyond our reach,'' said Georgean Kyle, ''but Brent said he had some ideas.'' Ladd designed posters emphasizing the toys' noncommercial simplicity and footed the entire bill. The ads, placed in the store's windows, have won prizes and revved up sales.

If you go prospecting for an agency yourself, make your case to the creatives--not the ''suits'' on the account side. ''The creatives are the softies who will accept your project--but for totally selfish reasons,'' advises Kelly Marshall, assistant creative director at Rick Johnson & Co. in Albuquerque.

Lack an ad agency contact? Seek out local clubs for agency types. And do a little research, too. To find out which agencies take on smaller clients, check the catalogs published by organizations that sponsor the major ad awards, such as The One Show, the Addy's, or the Andy's. These books, available in some library reference sections, list agency winners and their clients. Or check out award-winners in trade magazines such as Communication Arts.

Then, again, you might woo an agency with your own classified ad in the trade press, touting ''best client in the world, no budget, complete freedom,'' says one creative director, Caroline McGeorge. Or call one of the agency's creative directors who can direct you to a creative team hungry to do innovative work. In all cases, stress your openness and flexibility and explain that no one stands between you and the final decision.

''HAVING FUNGHI?'' If you state your company's marketing goals clearly, creatives will often accommodate your objectives. They did with Rudy F. Karkosak, owner of tiny Rudy's Exotic Mushrooms in Richmond, Va., which projects $30,000 in sales this year. When McGeorge, then at O'Keefe Marketing (now CadmusCom), proposed '60s-esque bumper stickers reading ''Shiitake Happens,'' Karkosak balked. ''They were trying to really hype up the psychedelic end, but I wanted this to be a classy, upscale business,'' he says. Their compromise for posters, bumper-stickers,

T-shirts, and postcards: ''Are You Having Fungi Yet?'' Karkosak also got a logo, other marketing materials, and advice--worth about $40,000. And he got the desired ''buzz'' in Richmond. His T-shirts are visible all over town. Now, he says, ''everyone knows who I am.''

Catchy free ads could help your business, too. Your enterprise might not be as exotic as mushrooms, or as juicy as a steak house with an attitude, but there's no telling what will inspire the agency muses given the chance. Creative freedom is a small price to pay.

By Roy Furchgott in Baltimore

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YOU'RE NOT IN A RUSH
Free projects are squeezed in between paying clients and demanding deadlines.

YOU CAN APPROVE THE AD QUICKLY AND SIMPLY
When working for free, agencies don't want to deal with the layers and committees clients usually subject them to.

YOU'RE OPEN-MINDED
In return for their services, ad agencies demand creative freedom. The resulting ads can be irreverent, even startling.

YOU AREN'T BROKE
While agencies will give you many services free, there may be some expenses, such as printing or buying ad space.

YOUR GOALS ARE CLEAR
You have a well-conceived marketing plan, can express your ideas concisely, and can articulate the image you want the ads to project.

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Barry, a senior art director at Arnold Finnegan Martin in Richmond, Va., teamed with freelance copywriter Steve Dolbinski. The pair quickly settled infor their brainstorming session, typically a marathon exchange full of free association, half-baked ideas, and, unfortunately, writer's block. But not this time. "I think we arrived at our idea within 15 minutes," says Barry. "We just hit on it and said, 'That's a home run.'"

The ad was simply a picture of a dog whose muzzle was mashed as if it had walked into an invisible barrier. They took the idea to the store owner, who required a bit of convincing. "We presented to the guy and said, 'we'll do the creative for free,' and I think that was a hard thing for him to turn down," says Barry. "We decided on dachshunds because we wanted something with a long nose that you could see was smooshed in. He sent about 20 takes, and one was just perfect, the dog paw was in motion, and the dog had a look in its eye like it really hit something. It was perfect."

Barry also called on friends who supplied thousands of dollars of photo retouching (to "smoosh" the dog's snout) and printing at a nominal fee. The end result was a point-of-purchase poster for the client and a prestigious Gold Pencil from the One show, an ad-industry award show, for Barry and Dolbinski.

When dentist W. Baxter Perkinson Jr. approached Virginia Commonwealth University students Stacy Milrany and Liz Bekesz, he was already recognized around Richmond, Va., as both a dentist and artist.

His problem was that he was becoming better known for his watercolors than his root canals. The students' solution not only slyly connected Perkinson's professional knowhow to his aesthetic skills, but also set him apart from the typical floss-and-polish dentist. They "had to say what he could do that other dentists in Richmond can't do," says Milrany, who directed the art for the campaign. Milrany and Bekesz, who wrote the copy, rejected the typical elements of dentists' ads (cartoon teeth, haloed pictures of practitioners) for a clean, modern look. They then homed in on Perkinson's cosmetic dentistry practice. "We threw out, oh, about 150 ideas," says Bekesz with some embarrassment. "I don't even want to go into detail."

The small black-and-white ads ran in programs for a Richmond-area lecture series. They cost Perkinson a little more than $1,000 for copy, design, photos, layout, and production, not including the advertising space. It's too early to see results, but the dentist has already taken a bite for three more ads.

While Tom Amico worked at ad agency Meldrum & Fewsmith in Cleveland, he was itching to break away from the constraints of clients like Glidden Paints and Stanley Steamer carpet cleaners. That's right about when he got a telephone call from a friend of a friend. "This guy had an auto improvement place and it wasn't doing that well," recalls Amico. "The guy was running ads, but they were very generic, the kind the newspaper would come up with themselves, and it had the name of the place and the store hours."

Amico and partner Jim Proimos felt they could go against convention, producing 100% art-free ads that lampooned celebrity endorsements and advertising itself. "We saw the opportunity to be a little naughty," says Amico.

Without using any photos, the ads coyly implied that celebrities endorsed various car improvements. Among those the ads invoked were the mayor of Cleveland, the city's top news anchor, and the Pope, pointing out that a sunroof would make it easier to drive while wearing his papal headgear. Each ad mentioned a different celebrity and a different improvement such as car alarms or paint detailing. "Part of his problem, was people came in for tires, but they didn't know about a lot of his other services, so it was a matter of getting out messages that would improve his business." The one sop to advertising convention was to offer a discount with the ad. But instead of including a coupon, the ads required customers to perform. In the case of the Pope ad, anyone who could recite the first 10 words of the "Our Father" got $5 off a $150 sunroof.

While Amico claims the ads worked, with five of them running "for quite a while," he didn't win any awards for them or even get paid for his services. He took his remuneration in personal gratification. "We got nothing out of it, I didn't even have a car at the time," he says. "We did it out of the goodness of our hearts, and the limitlessness of our egos."

By Roy Furchgott in Baltimore

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For instance, SoMoJo International LLC, makers of Cafe Cola, a caffeine-laden coffee soda targeted to Gen-Xers, got its first campaign from Jessie Smith, a student at Miami Ad School. The ad was an image of a bloodshot eye being held open with a toothpick. SoMoJo bought the ad for $75, then ran it in a south Florida newspaper and at point-of-purchase displays. "We got a lot of calls right away from people saying 'Wow! What is that stuff!'" says SoMoJo President Spence T. Levy. The company projects sales of $1 million this year.

These schools have various criteria for potential clients. The Creative Circus in Atlanta charges modest hourly fees so as not to draw work away from the agencies that support the center. The Miami Ad School prefers clients of national stature, like car-accessory company Fittipaldi, which paid $1,500 for three student campaigns that became a series of magazine ads. The Adcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond takes commercial projects but prefers public-service campaigns and requires applicants to submit a detailed proposal.

But virtually all of these programs also have a jobs board, where businesses can post help-wanted queries for student freelancers. The directors of most of these schools will also steer businesses to students capable of doing the particular work requested.

While many colleges and design schools have students capable of turning out a good campaign, the following schools are known for professional-level work:

The Art Center College Of Design, Pasadena, Calif. (www.artcenter.edu)

The Art Center offers everything from campaigns to logos, with an emphasis on graphic design. Entrepreneurs can write to the Red Eye Studio and describe your business, its advertising needs, and deadline. If your project fits the curriculum of the moment, it may be accepted. Clients pay for materials. The school will also recommend students for freelance projects, who will negotiate a fee.

Contact: Suzanne Manheimer, Director of the Red Eye Studio 626 396-2200, or for freelancers, Jean Mitsunaga 626 396-2320

The Creative Circus, Atlanta (www.creativecircus.com)

The Circus likes small clients that don't typically interest agencies. Clients should be able to provide a brief of specific marketing goals, discussing competition and pertinent business issues. The school will also assign freelance projects to appropriate students. Students typically charge fees ranging from $10 to $35 an hour.

Contact: Norm Grey, 404 633-1990


The Portfolio Center, Atlanta (www.portfoliocenter.com)
The Portfolio Center takes clients as class projects for expenses only and will consider assignments as small as a business card or as large as TV campaigns. Projects rejected for class may be given to student freelancers, who will negotiate their own fees, or to recent graduates looking for freelance work. The school has advertising, photography, illustration, and graphic-design departments.

Contact: Maryann Ritter, 404 351-5055


The Miami Ad School, Miami (www.adschool.edu)

The school prefers campaigns that will give students a chance for creative problem-solving and sustain a class for a 12-week term -- simple production jobs like business cards need not apply. A cash donation is required, but no specific amount is specified. The school has three editing suites for producing TV spots. Students are available for freelance jobs.

Contact: Pippa Seichrist, 305 538-3193


The Adcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (www.adcenter.vcu.edu)

Potential clients must fill out a two-page proposal describing marketing goals, the approval process, budget, and media plans. The school produces four major campaigns a year. Businesses that aren't appropriate for a class project can post requests on a job board for student freelancers.

Contact: Catherine Curran, 804 828-8384 ext. 103

By Roy Furchgott in Baltimore EDITED BY DENNIS BERMAN

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