Review by Brent Swan

Dan Fietsam, Chief Creative Officer of Energy BBDO in Chicago, spoke to an audience at the Chicago Portfolio School on Friday, February 5. The highlights of his presentation touched upon the true nature of interactivity, the process needed to achieve great work and a thorough detailing of a project that exemplifies what Energy BBDO is all about.

To start things off, Fietsam made note of the many challenges facing present day creative professionals. The current time is one of rapid change, which makes the work interesting and very rewarding. Answers to simple questions such as “what's an ad?” are not so clear anymore. To prosper in this environment, creative marketing is needed. One of the driving forces to Fietsam's work is achieving interactivity. This is not a simple interactivity of clicking buttons on a webpage but achieving real connections with people.

Fietsam shared his perspective about what it takes to run to a run a successful creative team. He believes in 3 key factors: excitement, client confidence, brand appropriateness. As overseer of overall creativity, the CCO needs to be excited about the work that the team is doing. If the CCO is genuinely excited about the project then chances are good that the solution will be engaging for the end user. In addition, an interesting and challenging solution will also engage the whole creative team and help establish the needed tenacity to achieve great results.

Secondly, the client needs to have confidence in the creative team's ability to deliver on a project's goals. Fietsam made special note to differentiate between clients being happy and the client being confident in the creative team's work. To illustrate this point, it was noted that clients being content with a creative solution doesn't necessarily mean the overall project goals are being met to their fullest potential. To achieve the best results, often times the CCO will need to make decisions that are not always popular. The last part of a successful process is that any solutions are right for the brand. Often times great ideas may reveal themselves to the creative team but fail to mesh with the brand's tone.

The Art Institute Red Cube project exemplifies Energy BBDO's work and their process. 3D cubes were placed across the city waiting to be found. Each cube contained a URL detailing a different artistic project. The 500ways.com website tracked every cube and the progress of each project. Individual projects were wide-ranging from creating YouTube videos to photographing cubes while traveling. Surprisingly 60% of people finding cubes participated with the Red Cube activities. The project generated local interest for the Art Institute in a unique way and created a special bond with lucky people that participated.

This event was sponsored by AIGA Chicago, Chicago Portfolio School and Portfolio Annex.