In recent years, Indy has become a leader in the Internet marketing software niche of the tech sector. While it’s been a great morale-booster for a city that’s been regarded as a technological hinterland, it’s hard to get excited about Internet marketing unless you’re making money from it. It’s not the kind of thing a place can hang its hat on.

Bigger local tech companies like Exact Target and Compendium deserve kudos for helping bring Indiana out of the Stone Age. But overlooked are smaller businesses who are doing work that’s worth ooohing and ahhing over. Businesses like The Basement.

The Basement is a digital design studio tucked away in a nondescript brick business complex at Fort Benjamin Harrison. Founded about two years ago by Brian Phillips, Kelli McLemore and Jacob Leffler, the company specializes in animation, motion graphics and Flash design for both the Internet and broadcast media. Only 11 people work there, but after visiting the Basement headquarters, I have a feeling they’ll be enlisting more help soon.

Earlier this year, The Basement won five “Louie Awards” from the Louisville Advertising Federation. One was a Judge’s Award for Best Interactive Advertising for “Surf The Crowds” (www.surfthecrowds.com), an online game The Basement developed for KFC Restaurants. KFC isn’t the only national brand the Basement has worked with, but it’s easily the biggest.

“We needed to get that one big national brand under our belt,” Phillips said. “I knew if we did, it would open many doors for us, and it has. The doors are opening regionally and nationally.”

Phillips, who was born and raised in Indianapolis, believes his hometown is not only an ideal location for a high-end animation and motion graphics studio, but also a fertile breeding ground for similar businesses.

“We really believe Indianapolis is primed to become a place,”Phillips said, emphasizing the last word. “And if we help develop the talent, it will help the quality of work.”

To that end, the Basement’s personnel has spent early 2009 cultivating a grass-roots tech community in the form of Flash Indianapolis, a user group devoted to the popular multimedia software.

“I think we’re driven by a chip on our shoulder,” Phillips said. “We see all the great work on the coasts, but we don’t want to go live there. We want to build it ourselves.”