CATFOA with Jeff Kling — Wednesday June 20

Ten years ago we launched an ongoing, always-in-beta speaker series called Conversations About The Future Of Advertising. Over 25 luminaries have participated since. In 2018 the series continues with a Summer of CATFOA—three different speakers, three different nights, and all kinds of ideas to expand your brain—presented by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA.org).

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2018
FEATURED GUEST: JEFF KLING 

He created Dos Equis’s “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” rubber-stamped Nike’s “Write the Future” campaign and authored the Miller High Life manifesto and campaign that still forms the playbook for many strategists, agencies, and brands. Recently Jeff gave Arby’s “The Meats,” helped America win their taxes for H&R Block, and helped Loctite win advertising’s Super Bowl. Just imagine what he has in mind for the future. 

On June 20 we’ll hang with Jeff Kling (LinkedIn), former Chief Creative Officer of Fallon. A man who hopes: 1. His ambient dislike of advertising has bettered his own work; and 2. That no one will mind his not having fulfilled his imagined potential as a world-champion surfer. In his fourteen-hundred thirty-seven-thousand years in the business, Kling has quarterbacked national and global work for Heineken, Coca-Cola, Jaguar, EA, Nokia, Volvo, Honda, The Eye Film Institute Netherlands, Miller Genuine Draft, ESPN, Clearasil, Gore-Tex and many, many more—and for a host of dead dot-coms, for whose busted first-wave bubble he is personally responsible.

REGISTER TO ATTEND THIS EVENT 

CATFOA with Peter Nicholson, CCO Periscope - August 17, 2016

UPDATE:  Many thanks to the 120+ attendees and especially Peter Nicholson for elevating our 24th Conversation About The Future Of Advertising.

Click here to watch the video from the August 17 event via MIMA.org.

* * *

Here we go again (but with a twist for you CATFOA loyalists). This time the Conversations About The Future Of Advertising speaker-series features Periscope’s newly minted Chief Creative Officer, Peter Nicholson. We're going to talk about the difficulties of change (see below). Doors open at 5:30pm on Wednesday, August 17, 2016. The twist? We're in a new location: The Minneapolis Event Centers' Riverside Ballroom next to St. Anthony Main. (Loyalists: please don't go to the old venue.) Huge thanks to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association for hosting this event.

YOU MUST REGISTER TO ATTEND >



Peter Nicholson has led an impressive 20+ career in creativity and ideas and leadership -- from Leagas Delaney to Goodby Silverstein, Deutsch, JWT, McKinney and now here in Minneapolis at Periscope.

On August 17 we're going to talk with Peter primarily about change management. It'll be a useful conversation for agency leaders, owners, creatives and pundits. 

Specifically, we'll talk about the challenges in making an agency or a marketing organization more fluent in the technology of modern advertising. We'll talk about how the efficacy of advertising has changed - and what that means for advertising ideas. And the changes in client/agency relationships, revenue models and staffing models. We'll also talk about what needs to change within agencies so there is a more even balance of genders and races (especially in leadership positions). 

It's going to be a rich, nuanced conversation. Don't miss it. 

AND DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER >

Bob Thacker - Monday, April 6, 2009: "Chewing Gum and Bailing Wire"

UPDATE:  Another fantastic turnout this evening! Many thanks to everyone who showed up, despite the Twins home opener, for Bob's inspiring presentation. A video recap of the event is embedded below.

- - - - -

Bob Thacker, Sr. VP, Marketing & Advertising for OfficeMax, the man who brought Michael Graves to Target and commissioned ElfYourself.com, joined us Monday, April 6 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (doors

 open at 5:00 p.m.) at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis.

Bob is infamous for exhorting his agencies to, "Don't make ads, make 

news." And his career demonstrates the strength of that direction, including roles as Sr. VP of Marketing Services at Sears Roebuck, VP of Marketing at Target and CEO/President of BBDO, Minneapolis. Bob was twice selected by Ad Age as one of the 

"Top 100 Marketers in the Nation," and was elected to the Retail Hall of Fame, which honors only one retail professional each year. He's figured out how to collaborate with traditional advertising and digital agencies and PR firms—from big shops to boutiques. 

His career includes deep experience with media planning, campaign integration, marketing technology and the challenges and opportunities that come in collaborating with empowered consumers—not to mention figuring out how to achieve more with less. 

Bob will be speaking about getting big ideas with small budgets, with obser

vations and insights from his career, focused through the lens of our turbulent times. Bob says, "I hope that I might enlighten and inspire the CATFOA audience to persevere and even prevail."

We've hosted seven events so far in this series. Here's the first that digs into the future of advertising from the client perspective. Check out this recent interview with Bob from Businessweek magazine for more insights. This is going to be

 a fantastic event. Don't miss it.