I met someone interesting today!

Leo Burnett - Chicago, ILL
Thanks to our counselor at CCE, I met an agency professional who started his career in advertising about the same time that I did - he was born in 1961, so that makes him about the same age as my younger brother Scott. His name is Bret Stout, and I had him in my classroom as a guest speaker today. He remembers the learning curve that we all went through during the time that computers were making their entree into the creative world, and he described a lot of the same things that I feel have happened to me in my career. It was a great thing to have him reinforce the same things that I had said many times to my students before.

Bret Stout began his career with a job in storyboarding at Leo Burnett in Chicago. His life took him from Los Angeles to Missouri to Texas to Chicago. That is quite a journey. He spent some time at Mizzou and then finished his studies at SMU. He went straight from SMU to Leo Burnett. From Leo Burnett, he switched to copywriting and moved to TWA/Chiat/Day and then came back to Texas to work at (of all places) Temerlin McClain where my eldest son works now (T:M Advertising). He actually worked at T:M during the establishment of the interactive branch of the company which is where DJ is now. It was interesting to hear him talk about how that all happened, and especially interesting to hear him discuss how the agency went from over 700 employees to around 100 currently. The bulk of the traditional side has really slimmed and the emphasis in the agency is on the interactive side. Listening to him discuss the changes in the agency model over the course of the past 30 years was intriguing.

I am hoping to add Bret to our advisory board and to make use of his experience level to mentor some of our advertising and marketing students. I thought the students in both of my classes were receptive and responsive to him, and I enjoyed watching them interact with him.

It is always gratifying to think that you are providing students with opportunities to learn new things, and today I think we did that by having Bret speak to them. All in all, a good, progressive day.

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