A look at the people behind the numbers in area business:
JON TRETTEL YAMAMOTO
Title: Digital creative director
Age: 50
Jon Trettel is working to help Minneapolis ad agency Yamamoto build on the growth of its digital practice in taking on the newly created role of digital creative director.
Trettel joined Yamamoto from Vetta-Zelo, the Minneapolis digital shop that he founded in 2002 and that in recent years has had a strategic partnership with the ad agency. Yamamoto will fold in Vetta-Zelo's digital services and some of its clients.
Trettel oversees all of Yamamoto's digital and social media work, enabling him to focus on "the creative aspect of what I love to do, and that's the digital stuff."
Yamamoto's digital workload grew from 25 percent of billings in 2013 to 40 percent this year. The addition of four Fortune 500 clients who with other new clients bring greater demand for digital creativity helped drive the agency to bring in Trettel.
"Every pitch, every client, every opportunity that Yamamoto has right now has something to do with digital," said Trettel, including a major new product launch for Samsung's business printing solutions. "We're shoring up project management as well to make sure they have the digital background that we're going to need to continue our growth."
Trettel, who has a degree in graphic design from St. Cloud State University, said getting his start in creative before digital tools existed has been an advantage. "You understand everything from a brochure to radio to a billboard to television on up to digital, whether that be productivity tools, websites or whatnot," Trettel said. "That's a tremendous help, to be well-rounded."
Q: What are your priorities at Yamamoto?
A: Continuing the growth of Yamamoto as a digital agency. They're strong now but we want to continue the growth of the digital department and savvy of Yamamoto to be world class.
Q: Why should a business go to Yamamoto for digital and other creative work?
A: We put out the best creative, we have the brightest people, we're a collaborative shop and at the end of the day we can surpass any agency out there as far as what we deliver and what the results are.
Q: What do you like about doing creative digital work?
A: It's ever changing. There's always something new. You can always invent along the way, you can always find new ways of doing things, new ways of engaging clients. It's not going away; it's only going to be more prevalent and more powerful.
Todd Nelson
