It was a cold and dreary day in Downtown Vancouver, on this Wednesday afternoon, but our spirits quickly lifted with a short elevator ride to the 16th floor of the DDB Vancouver building. We were instantly transported into a bright and inspiring atmosphere.
A group of 36 wide-eyed and excited Kwantlen students, accompanied by KPU Marketing Instructor Andrea Niosi, were warmly greeted by friendly DDB-ers Sara Caissie and Elisabeth Szabo. They led us through hallways of creative eye candy (even the concrete walls of their stairways were tagged with beautiful artwork) and into an open conference room.
Sara gave us amazing insights into the creative work that DDB produces with everything from an integrated marketing campaign called Eggonomics for the BC Egg Marketing Board to their work for the Canadian Tourism Commission, producing a 2 minute tourism video that condensed 65 hours worth of footage shared by Canadians. These campaigns really reinforced DDB’s focus on creating content with “share value” which Sara explained as content that is so good that people naturally want to share it with others.
We were then given the opportunity to have all of our burning questions answered by a panel made up of DDB department leads including Director of Public Relations, Paige Calvert, and Director of Production, Zerlina Chan. They generously shared countless pieces of advice and wonderful insights with us, based on their years of experience in the industry. Andrea Niosi provided a great summary of some of the questions answered in her blog post, which can be found here:
http://kwantlenmarketing.com/2013/02/20/ddb-canada-shares-its-wisdom-with-kwantlen-marketing-students/
The time had come to tour the office! The office was organized based on the different departments that make up DDB, each area equally as beautiful and creative as the one before. The staff was all very friendly and many even took the time to stop what they were doing and answer some of our questions.
We all left that day inspired and a little more informed on what goes on inside the four walls that contain some of Canada’s most successful creative professionals.
Thank you DDB Vancouver!
– Jayme Canotal, Director of Events