With the exception of the nebulous “chairman emeritus” title he will hold at Euro RSCG Tatham Partners until March, Tom McConnaughy is all but gone from Chicago’s advertising scene.
The longtime art director confirmed he’s close to launching a new venture outside of the ad business but staying in the city. He isn’t looking back.
This should worry the country’s second-biggest ad market. There is no boutique, no legend-in-the-making, no small shop here that is about to get referred to in a trade magazine as a “rising hot shop.”
A big ad market needs to fret when it doesn’t have a mix of big agencies doing big ads and small shops creating noticeable advertising that make the big shops a little nervous.
It’s a sign that no innovators are coming into the market.
Ever wonder why Chicago gets overlooked by clients looking for a new ad agency these days? When there’s no creative to stop a potential client in its tracks, Chicago becomes a place to change flights to another ad city … like Minneapolis or Portland.
McConnaughy, who left the big agency scene to start McConnaughy Barocci Brown nearly 16 years ago, ran the last significant creative boutique in Chicago until it was acquired by Euro RSCG Tatham two years ago. In that time, he introduced the city to an understated, elegant, simplistic style of print advertising that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the best from cities known for print work, like San Francisco and Boston.
As the agency for Illinois tourism during the Gov. Jim Thompson era, McConnaughy made the drab Prairie State sparkle in ads using the tagline “American Renaissance.” The agency took struggling True Value Hardware and gave it personality with the “help is just around the corner” campaign.
He followed behind another small shop innovator, Jan Zechman, who with a more quirky, provocative style, launched the Dove bar to America before it was sold to M&M/Mars.
With their separate shops, McConnaughy and Zechman have turned out some of the better creative directors in the business. Some, like Jim Schmidt, Mitch Gordon and Kevin Lynch, have stayed. Many others, like Mark Fenske, Ryan Ebner and Brian O’Neill, have left to find that same creative sensibility elsewhere.
McConnaughy and Zechman had this in common: Creative came first, and everything else followed. Both were principled creative directors who lost as much business as they won. It would eventually undermine both. A town that prefers to test advertising with focus groups rather than rely on instinct and experience doesn’t put up with creative directors who say “no.”
“Tom drove a stake in the ground, and that stake was creativity,” said his longtime creative partner Schmidt. “Too many agencies jam a weather vane into the ground and let it spin in whatever direction is convenient.”
“There’s some sadness,” McConnaughy says about leaving the business. “This town has been notorious not to grasp that thinking. Other towns embrace smaller entities run by their partners. In this town it’s like banging your head against the wall.”
He says he’s not leaving out of frustration with his new owners. At 60, and after 38 years in advertising, he wants to try something new.
Yet when Euro RSCG Tatham took McConnaughy’s name off the door this year as it began its latest transformation, the city’s creative ranks should have felt a shiver.
McConnaughy is confident something might return, that the economy is holding innovation back.
“Let’s face it, it’s survival now. The big guys are hurting now too,” he said. “When times were good, people bought great stuff. It’s definitely one of those other periods now.”
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Question is, who will change it when companies are ready?
Tennis stars make pitch: Venus and Serena Williams are the latest stars to pitch the McDonald’s Dollar Menu. New ads starring the tennis phenoms are due Friday as McDonald’s gets set to launch its Dollar Menu nationally. DDB Chicago handles the campaign.
On the move: David Ford, formerly with NBC here, joins WBBM-Ch. 2 as local sales manager. … Jeff Adkins, formerly of Euro RSCG Tatham, joins BBDO Chicago as senior vice president, new business.
On tap: Communications groups are coming together for the first annual Acronym Holiday Bash on Dec. 5 at the Biggs Mansion, 1150 N. Dearborn St. Proceeds will go to the baiduhai Holiday Fund. For information, go to www.acronymbash.com.