Gertrude has made a move. Yes, the six-year-old ad agency founded and run by the ever-upbeat, ever-expansion-oriented Otis Gibson threw open the doors of its colorful, eclectically-decorated new home at 358 W. Ontario St. for a housewarming event late last week, to help spread the word the boutique shop has arrived in River North.
Gertrude/Chicago’s new 8,000-square-foot headquarters (the agency has smaller offices in New York and London) originally housed the operations of the F.C. Traver Paper Co., which dates back to 1897.
Redesigned to accommodate Gertrude, the offices feature Eames furniture, a four-foot-tall Lava Lite (a client) and a number of Predicta (also a client) television screens.
The design centerpiece of the shop is a found-object art installation created by former architect Christophe Gauspohl. The art work is comprised of salvaged and reclaimed laths that otherwise would have ended up in a landfill.
Until the relocation to River North, Gertrude spent its formative years in an increasingly-cramped 5,000-square-foot space west of the loop near the United Center.
That previous site was, as Gibson increasingly realized, just too far out of the loop (literally and figuratively) to work well for both the shop’s full-time staff that currently number nearly 20 and the agency clients.
Gertrude’ client roster now includes Thailand’s Singha beer, IMZ-Ural, L.A. Gear, TimeOutGroup and Virgin mobile, in addition to the aforementioned Lava Lite and Predicta.
Singha beer was a huge piece of business
An alumnus of Leo Burnett/Chicago and a native New Yorker, Gibson has been one of the brighter lights in the local advertising community since opening the doors of his own shop. Gibson reminds us in many ways of Vinny Warren of the Escape Pod/Chicago.
Like Warren, Gibson takes pride in the agency he founded and is very focused on doing relevant, great work for a diverse client roster.
A
s Gibson will be the first to admit, however, the tide really turned for the shop when it started working with Singha beer over a year ago. Initially, Gertrude handled the Thai beer’s North American ad business.
The agency’s work in the North American market so impressed the powers-that-be at Singha that the brewer handed the agency the global ad account a few months ago.
While Singha may be Thailand’s biggest beer export, the brewer, of course, does not have the scale of an Anheuser-Busch. Still, Singha was a huge piece of business to hand to a shop like Gertrude, which is about to roll out a new global campaign for the beer brand.
MBA studies enriched Gibson’s efforts at Gertrude
As he has watched Gertrude expand, Gibson also has worked hard to hone his skills as the shop’s chief creative officer, and, perhaps more importantly, as the manager of an agency that wants to be noticed and respected for what it does.
Gibson is starting work now on the thesis that will be the final step in getting a MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership in Berlin, Germany.
Over the course of many months of taking courses at the school (Gibson commuted regularly), he got to exchange war stories with other ad folk from all over the globe, thereby enriching his perspective about his own efforts at Gertrude and about the struggles to establish and grow ad agencies in less familiar parts of the world.
We asked the Gertrude/Chicago leader for his take on the current state of what has been a very beleaguered Chicago ad industry? “It’s gotten better,” said Gibson, who nonetheless recognizes there have been a lot of low and not so many high moments in the local ad world over the past decade.
Gertrude pushing to become a full-service agency
Among other things, Gibson said he has had the pleasure of getting to know Leo Burnett chief creative officer Susan Credle since she came to Chicago two years ago. And he believes she is a good thing for that agency, which recently picked up Fifth Third Bank and esurance.com, a unit of Allstate, one of Burnett’s long-standing clients.
But finally, Gibson aims to make his Gertrude shop a major player in Chicago and beyond by adding to its client roster and its capabilities. “We started out doing a lot of TV work,” said Gibson.
But the shop is gaining proficiency in social media, public relations, interactive and brand innovation — all part of the push to make Gertrude a full-service agency with a great story to tell.
The one thing Gibson wouldn’t tell us in our phone interview, though, was how he came up with the name Gertrude.
“I like to tell that story only in person,” insisted Gibson. Needless to say, our curiosity is piqued, and we’ll be getting together with Gibson very soon. We’ll let you know.
Contact Lewis Lazare at LewisL3@aol.com
