
Chief Executive Officer at Hello Viking
Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Chief Executive Officer at Hello Viking
Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area
I'm a writer and creative director. And a drummer. I'm keen on solving business problems with more than words and images.
I grew up in Minneapolis. Got a degree in Jazz. Stumbled into advertising in 1993. Lived on the east coast from 1995-2006. Learned a lot about how ad agencies work (and don't). Got heavily involved in interactive.
The highlight was nine years spent helping lead and evolve the Volkswagen "Drivers wanted." campaign at Arnold Worldwide, including helping launch the New Beetle Convertible, Touareg and Phaeton as well as numerous digital initiatives, including turbonium.com, RadioVW.com and four redesigns of vw.com.
Moved back to Minneapolis in 2006 to help lead Carmichael Lynch into a new era. Now I'm a part of creating a new advertising entity: We're Hello Viking. We are a new kind of advertising entity.
We believe in harnessing the digital base. It’s what underscores any relationship today between any brand and its customers.
It’s the data, technology and functionality that dictate corporate leadership, product design, manufacturing, pricing strategy, distribution and customer service are, by default, elements of marketing and advertising.
It’s reassuringly analytical, yet stubbornly radical.
It’s definitely not business as usual.
We cut our teeth creating and producing hundreds of internationally award-winning brand and retail TV commercials, print ads, design systems, websites, banner ads, events and radio spots for Volkswagen, Goodyear, Yahoo!, McDonald’s, Hewlett Packard and Anheuser-Busch, among others.
But we know our best work is yet to come.
Marketing strategy development, branding and identity, copywriting, creative management, teaching, brewing a fresh pot of coffee when I discover the carafe is empty, information architecture, music development and arranging, drumming.
(Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Primary/Secondary Education industry)
2008 — Present (less than a year)
I created and am teaching an Advertising studio course for the Spring 2008 term called "The Future of Advertising." You can learn more about this course at my blog: http://usefullunacy.typepad.com/useful_lunacy/mcad/index.html
(Marketing and Advertising industry)
May 2008 — Present (5 months)
Our motto: "There are no small ads, only small people." BannerPalooza makes online banner ads. That's it. All shapes. All sizes. All functionalities. We've got an outstanding team of producers and Flash designers/developers who love making banner ads. We can be white-label or a standard production resource. We've recently produced banners for Sony Vaio (via 180LA), 3M (via Kruskopf Coontz) and IKEA (via Valassis).
(Marketing and Advertising industry)
July 2007 — Present (1 year 3 months)
I'm a founder and the Chief Executive Officer at Hello Viking, a multi-faceted marketing organization. We created Hello Viking to better assimilate our digital expertise, process and ideas with our experience practicing traditional forms of advertising. We believe conversation is the new advertising—and our role is to incite, enable and guide conversations between consumers and our clients' products, brands and services. In addition to our foot prints in Minneapolis and Boston, Hello Viking uses a "virtual" model, drawing on just the right resources when they're needed to provide a wide and flexible range of solutions for our clients.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)
May 2006 — July 2007 (1 year 3 months)
Helped lead and manage integrated creative department in development of advertising and marketing solutions.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)
April 2006 — April 2006 (1 month)
Freelance creative direction and writing on H&R Block new business pitch.
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)
January 2006 — February 2006 (2 months)
Freelance writing and creative direction on Morgan Stanley, American Express and Dove.
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)
November 1997 — December 2005 (8 years 2 months)
Worked on and helped lead the Volkswagen ("Drivers wanted.") creative team for almost a decade. Won a few awards for that. Helped win some news business (Dunlop Tires, Goodyear, EMC, Hush Puppies). Ran the Goodyear account for 13 months. Helped create and nurture the agency's interactive production system.
(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)
2000 — 2001 (1 year)
Evolved existing Copywriting course to better meet the needs of graduate students in the Marketing MBA Program. Taught fundamentals of consumer research, marketing strategy, creative briefing, creative concepting, copywriting, art direction and production.
(Marketing and Advertising industry)
1997 — 1997 (less than a year)
Freelance advertising concepting and copywriting for PARTNERS & Simons (PC Magazine, PC Week), McKinney & Silver (Sunkist Orange Juice) and Arnold Worldwide (Volkswagen).
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)
June 1995 — April 1997 (1 year 11 months)
Wrote print, radio and TV for AnheuserBusch (American Originals, Bud Light). Helped A-B develop new products and non-traditional marketing opportunities. Wrote TV and radio for Scudder Mutual Funds, print for Winchester Hospital, Boston Bruins and Reebok. Designed, produced and coded HTML for the agencys first website.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)
January 1994 — June 1995 (1 year 6 months)
Worked on Boatmens Bancshares, US WEST Telecommunications Group (now Qwest), the 1994 U.S. Olympic Festival, the Moolah Shrine Circus, Taco Bell (regional) and Tanana Suncare.
BA, Jazz Studies, 1988 — 1992