Donald Trump’s campaign has made payments to an unusual new company for web advertising with little footprint beyond a New Hampshire home with a tongue-in-cheek name: Draper Sterling — a reference to Don Draper and Roger Sterling, two of the main characters on the Emmy-winning show “Mad Men.”
Trump paid $35,000 to Draper Sterling last month, a business that lists a home in Londonderry, New Hampshire, as its principal address, according to the New Hampshire secretary of state’s website.
As reporters combed through Trump’s federal financial disclosures filed late Monday, the Draper Sterling name stood out. That’s for a reason, Paul Holzer, a data analyst for the firm, told CNN Tuesday. Holzer said he and Jonathan Adkins “picked a name to be funny. We were a small start-up and wanted to get some attention.”
Holzer described Draper Sterling as a data analytics company that performs data analysis, voter profiles and statistics for political campaigns, but also does most of its data analytic work for hospitals and medical delivery services. He said he didn’t know how Trump campaign staffers found his company.
“When you are good you are good,” he said.
Adkins and the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.
The company was formed last December and incorporated in Delaware. The Londonderry home is owned by Jonathan Adkins and his wife, Amber, according to Rockingham County real estate records.
Holzer and Adkins were also paid $3,000 each independently of Draper Sterling by the Trump campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission records, for “field consulting work.”
The two men share another tie — both Holzer, a full-time medical student at Dartmouth, and Adkins are listed as officers of a Boston-based company called Xeno Therapeutics, which says it has procedures to treat burn victims.
Trump’s campaign is not the only organization the group has worked for this year.
A super PAC called Patriots for America owes the firm slightly more than $56,000, according to federal election records filed in April. That super PAC, listed in records as a Wilmington, Delaware, organization, is listed as a fundraiser for Republicans in the Missouri governor’s race.
A phone call to Patriots for America transferred to Grace’s Grantham Cafe back in Grantham, New Hampshire.
Adkins — the owner of Draper Sterling and the man paid on the FEC report — owns that cafe, according to New Hampshire state records.
As for the biggest question being asked on social media — is Draper Sterling a real agency? — Holzer said truth isn’t as exciting as fiction.
“When the dust settles, people are going to be real disappointed to find out how boring this story really is,” Holzer said.
