Chicago is Our Kind of Town

“Make no little plans… They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realised.” So said Daniel Burnham, the urban planner behind much of Chicago’s early architecture. Looking at the city’s iconic skyline, with its totem poles of stone, metal and glass piercing the heavens, it’s impossible not to be awed by the ambition and scale, the mix of new and old which somehow works in harmony.

Burnham made his famous comment sometime in the 19th century, but fast-forward to 2017 and it’s a motto that Chicago’s creative community seems to be taking to heart, if this year’s barnstorming performance at Cannes Lions is anything to go by.

With Oscar-winning creative studio Framestore opening up a Chicago base, McDonald’s moving its headquarters from the suburb of Oak Brook into the city centre, and a series of brand new start-ups invigorating the tech scene, these are clearly exciting times to be in the Windy City. 

Second city… but first-rate creativity

Yet historically, Chicago has suffered under the label of “second city” and, despite the creative leaps made in recent years, it’s a perception that still persists, to the annoyance of many industry insiders. “The market has been pursuing great work for a very long time, but we’ve been a bit in the shadows,” reckons Tonise Paul, president and CEO of Energy BBDO Chicago. “I think our story is better than the one that’s been told so far.”

“I don’t think that we’ll ever get away completely from that feeling of Chicago being a second city to New York,” sighs DDB’s head of production, Diane Jackson. “DDB’s heritage is very much Madison Avenue and Bill Bernbach, but I would argue that the jewel in the network’s crown is the Chicago office. We’re certainly the most highly awarded.” 

Craig Duncan, MD at Cutters Studios, agrees: “Chicago is widely referred to as the ‘second city’, but over the years we have seen first-hand that it is top-tier in every way. I feel the creative standard is incredibly high, and the work that came out this year was extraordinary.”  “There’s no way you can look at the creativity, originality and groundbreaking work that comes out of the agencies in Chicago and say that it is not on par with the coasts,” adds Framestore’s executive producer, Krystina Wilson.

Certainly Chicago put on a strong show on the Croisette this year, winning Lions in categories as wide-ranging as Film Craft (Samsung Ostrich from Leo Burnett, and Morton Salt The One Moment from Ogilvy & Mather) and PR (FCB’s Teddy Gun campaign for Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence), while DigitasLBi and Leo Burnett picked up a Grand Prix apiece in Creative Data (Whirlpool Care Counts) and Creative Effectiveness (Art Institute of Chicago’s Van Gogh BnB) respectively.

Much of that “second city” reputation stems from Chicago’s traditional advertising heritage, based as it is in heavy-lifting consumer packaged goods (CPG) and insurance work for big brands, many of whom have been somewhat slow when it comes to venturing beyond the safe harbour of traditional, formulaic advertising. 

“We [still] do our most engaging work with clients outside the Midwest,” says R/GA ECD Matt Marcus, pointing to LIFEWTR, Pepsi’s new art-inspired water brand, which aims to democratise art through creative initiatives such as bottle labels designed by emerging women artists; and Rose, a “highly personality-driven” chatbot-cum-concierge R/GA created for Las Vegas’ Cosmopolitan hotel.

But change is afoot, says DDB’s Jackson. “We definitely had a period of time where clients weren’t willing to take risks, but there has been a massive shift in the last three years. Even large, traditional companies with a dyed-in-the-wool approach to marketing are beginning to rethink their approach.”

Someone who knows the value of convincing clients to take a creative leap of faith is Marcus’s co-ECD AJ Hassan, the brains behind P&G’s multi-award-winning #LikeAGirl campaign, who joined the company from Leo Burnett last year. “Every brand goes at their own pace, but over time I think we’ll see more of these big clients being braver, the more they see success stories from corporations like themselves,” she says.

Those success stories include Morton Salt’s The One Moment, for which Ogilvy & Mather convinced one of Chicago’s oldest brands to partner with local rockers OK Go on a brilliant music video embodying the spirit of the brand’s iconic umbrella girl logo. 

Blowing things up in the Windy City

Meanwhile, Energy BBDO Chicago has been shaking up the usually predictable health category with their life-saving initiative, The HeroSmiths Theory, for pharmaceutical giant Bayer, encouraging people with the common surname of Smith to carry Bayer aspirin, thereby helping to reduce the danger of heart attacks. “We applaud Bayer for taking the risk to make a campaign that taps into human emotion, rather than focussing on product attributes, as is often the case with healthcare,” says the agency's CCO Andrés Ordóñez.

It’s not just new ways of advertising that are being explored – clients are increasingly looking to mould-breaking agency models, too. DDB’s Jackson cites the “epic” 2016 McDonald’s pitch as a key example, in which Leo Burnett and DDB Chicago battled for the fast-food brand’s close-to-US$1 billion business. “[McDonald’s] was looking for something radically different. So we really blew things up in terms of our pitch.” The bold solution was to offer the client a dedicated “agency of the future” – We Are Unlimited launched in January this year. “It’s definitely a different approach to servicing a client and doing really comprehensive work for them, not just re-appropriating TV ads as pre-roll,” says Jackson, “and the fact this kind of epic move for a major global client is happening here in Chicago is tremendous.”

With this uptick in creativity, coupled with a more affordable cost of living and a healthier work-life balance than New York, it’s surprising creatives aren’t flocking from the Big Apple to the Windy City. As Britt Nolan, CCO of Leo Burnett, puts it: “Chicago has all the best parts of New York, but it’s less intense. New York’s at a nine, Chicago’s at a six.”

Yet despite this, attracting talent remains an issue, says Liz Taylor, CCO of FCB Chicago. “Winning international awards and having the big clients helps but [Chicago] can still be a hard sell for creatives.” Happily, it’s a prejudice that seems confined to the within the United States; elsewhere, Chicago’s success story is trumping old mindsets. “We have people reaching out to us from Brazil, from South Africa… and we love it,” says Taylor.

FCB isn’t the only agency attracting international talent; DDB recently lured creatives from Australia and Energy BBDO’s Ordóñez oversees a creative department made up of over 20 different nationalities. “People think of Chicago as this beige, Midwestern place, but you only have to walk the halls of this agency to see that’s not true,” says BBDO’s Paul proudly. “One of the reasons we’re doing work that is resonating with people all over the world is that we’ve been driving diversity like mad.” Leading international creative production studios such as The Mill and Framestore, which opened in May this year, have also served to draw a wave of world-class talent into the city.

From traditional to tech-forward

When it comes to production, Chicago may not be blessed with the West Coast’s palm trees and balmy climes, but the 30 per cent state tax credit (for shooting and handling post production in Illinois), is bringing “a ton” of TV, film and commercial production into Chicago, meaning there’s enough work not only to keep long-established editing companies like Whitehouse Post and Cutters busy but also to support new ventures such as Third Coast (see profile, page 70). “Traditionally, agencies had to go to the coasts to finish off high-end films, because they felt there wasn’t the talent here to do that,” notes Matthew Wood, partner and editor at Whitehouse Post. “There’s no longer that feeling that a film will suffer for staying here.”

And although the Chicago market continues to be “very traditional, very film-dominated”, according to Wood, R/GA’s Marcus sees the beginnings of a “tech swell” thanks to a wave of new start-ups popping up all around the city “[which are] starting to drive a new perspective”.

A challenger to Chicago’s River North tech hub has appeared in the form of Fulton Market, the city’s former meatpacking district, which houses Google’s Midwest headquarters and The Mill’s gleaming new offices. Having grown from 12 to 65 staff, and with three 2017 Super Bowl spots to their name, “This past year has been pretty spectacular,” says The Mill’s head of colour, Luke Morrison. “We’ve built a team of brilliant makers and creators for all media from across the world, which has made it possible for our clients to keep all of their business in the city.”

Despite its short time on the ground, rival Framestore is already busy with exciting new opportunities, including the new Capital One campaign featuring Samuel L. Jackson. “The most exciting part is that the work… is not just traditional broadcast advertising, but has required us to pitch on projects for all platforms including VR,” says Wilson.

All for a win and a win for all

One thing’s for certain: every award, every piece of new business is celebrated as a win, not just for the individual companies but for Chicago as a whole. Compared to markets like London and New York, Chicago boasts a truly collaborative spirit and a collective goal to raise its creative profile on the world stage.

“We call it the city of big shoulders,” says Energy BBDO’s Paul, “this notion of being in it together and holding each other up, being great teamplayers and collaborators.” Leo Burnett’s Nolan concludes: “Do great work - but be understated and humble about it. That’s the philosophy we live by in Chicago.”