Brian Boord has returned to independent Minneapolis advertising agency Periscope as vice president and group creative director amid a wave of top creative hires from agencies tied to holding companies.
Boord previously worked at Periscope for seven years before spending the past five at DDB Chicago, focusing on brands including Skittles, State Farm and McDonald's. He's one of nine hires Periscope announced at the end of April.
"I'm excited to help push the creative in general and also help guide the creatively focused momentum it has going right now," said Boord, who has Canne Lions and Clios among his industry awards. "With Peter [Nicholson, chief creative officer] and Liz [Ross, CEO] coming in, they want to push this agency to be bigger and better."
Periscope, which Nicholson joined a year ago and Ross in 2015, is among the largest creative agencies operating independently of holding companies that run multiple agencies. Periscope leadership says that independence offers greater creative freedom that has helped attract talent from across the country and in the Twin Cities.
"It puts a little spark in everyone because they see new people, new ways of thinking and see the kind of work other agencies are doing," Boord said of the influx.
Periscope, founded in 1994, is a full-service marketing firm with clients including Best Buy, ExxonMobil, Target, Trolli and Walgreens. The agency has more than 500 employees and also has offices in Toronto, Delhi and Hong Kong.
Q: What are some advantages of Periscope's independence?
A: It's great to have the freedom to spread your wings a little bit more and not have as many closed doors. It's a great thing from a creative standpoint. We have a lot of capabilities in house so we can take on more broader types of assignments. Even though we're a big agency it feels small. The highest-up person in this agency is the end all, be all. He doesn't have layers of bosses above him, which is very refreshing.
Q: How does that independent status benefit clients?
A: They get so many options of different types of work and capabilities that we can give them. We have a lot of options. It's more intimate and they don't have do deal with a lot of overhead. Here's your team, right here in this one place.
Q: What have you learned from working with larger clients?
A: You have bigger budgets and bigger buys so you learn how to do things on a bigger scale. You're playing on a very big stage so you're more critical of your work. When you get a project that might not have as much, you know what you need to cut back on or scale back to get it to a place where it's still going to be executed well.
