Chris Actis, new president and chief growth officer at Kruskopf & Co., is using his extensive digital marketing and media experience to strengthen the Minneapolis-based agency's ability to help clients identify and pursue opportunities.
Actis brings more than two decades of experience in client and executive-leadership roles in the United States and Asia to Kruskopf & Co., an independent full-service strategy, creative and media agency that refers to itself as KC.
He most recently was Midwest regional president at Initiative, Interpublic Group's global media agency in Chicago.
Among his goals is strengthening KC's digital capability across the agency, which in place of a conference room has a casual work space dubbed the "Truth Bar."
"The agency is organized around finding brand truths, category truths and audience truths," Actis said. "I think there is opportunity to use a lot of data available, both media data and audience data, to add deeper insights into all those three components. Leveraging that to understand what audiences want and applying that to a communications strategy or a creative approach for clients is really where we'll find some magic."
KC wants to help clients capitalize on more sophisticated data and technology as they move forward in the digital transformation of their marketing.
"We're working on a 'Truth audit' product to look at a marketer's current state of digital readiness and tell them what they need to optimize to move along in the journey," Actis said.
Actis gained creative and strategic experience at agencies including Messner, where he was part of one of the industry's first digital departments, JWT and MRM/McCann. He later moved into media, including managing the Walmart and Walmart.com digital investment.
