Jeff Tresidder, new senior vice president and executive creative director at Minneapolis-based Broadhead, is working to ensure that the marketing agency's creative product improves every day.
Tresidder also wants to make sure that Broadhead's work stays relevant in a rapidly changing media environment.
"What many in this industry seem to have forgotten is that regardless of the environment you're talking to the customer in you have to be more interesting than your competitors to be remembered," Tresidder said. "We make sure that whatever your messaging is, it's interesting enough to be remembered."
Tresidder leads Broadhead's 25-person creative team and is part of the agency's leadership team. Founder Dean Broadhead launched the full-service, independent, employee-owned agency in 2001.
Tresidder's responsibilities include developing relationships with clients and between the creative department and the rest of the agency.
Broadhead's consistent growth, avoiding the rapid expansion and contraction some agencies experience, and low turnover rate also were part of the appeal, Tresidder said.
Tresidder most recently was group creative director at Martin Williams Advertising. His experience also includes art direction roles at Carmichael Lynch and Colle McVoy.
Broadhead, which has more than 90 total employees, focuses on farm, food and lifestyle brands. Clients include Boehringer Ingelheim, Cargill, the Mosaic Co., and Firestone.
Broadhead's affiliated brands are Rabbit, which offers business consulting services, and North 401 Studios, a content studio with in-house production capabilities that's also available to clients, other agencies and vendors.
Q: What goes in to producing work that gets remembered?
A: I believe this business isn't so much about being brilliant as it is about digging. Ideas — especially the great ideas — are there for anyone to find if they're willing to dig a little bit deeper than the next person. In that sense we're miners as much as we are creative geniuses.
Q: How do you develop creative talent?
A: First we hire quality people. Then we make sure they have everything they need to do their job well. Then I let them do it. It's not my job to insist that people do things the way that I would. My job is to put people in the right circumstances and help them to do their very best work.
Q: Were you looking for an independent agency?
A: It didn't impact my decision that much. But since I've been here I've come to appreciate it more and more. It's refreshing to watch this firm have the freedom to act on what they know is best for our clients and our employees without having to get permission from somebody else.
