Of Age

Today, Creative Department turns 21. But do you think that bit of trivia will earn us a free drink in a bar? (I think it’s worth a shot.) As ad agencies go, 21 is a fairly ripe old age. Most of our local compatriots from the early 90s have been merged and purged, or closed outright. Do we feel lucky? Pretty much. Do we feel old? Oh yeah. The good news is, we don’t have any employee yet that is actually younger than our company. But it’s getting close. Darn close. Then we’ll really feel old.

So how do we celebrate this millstone in a blog? We could show snippets of our web site from the year we opened. But in January of 1992, the World Wide Web was barely a gleam in Al Gore’s eye. In fact, we were on top of the early days of the Internet in 1995 when we snapped up creativedepartment.com. (Yes, we were a part of the url buying binge.) Did we know how the Internet would change the world of business? Actually we had a pretty good idea. We had a hunch that new territory and vast opportunity was about to be opened in America and beyond for exploration and exploitation again. Although who could have predicted the power of dancing babies or Facebook? I didn’t see that coming. And I admit now, I predicted that the Google wouldn’t last. I stand corrected by Father Time. But hey, at least I’m still standing.

So what’s our age-defying beauty secret to this longevity? Perseverance mostly. In our first year, we started with a few people and a mantra – do good work and the money will come. We still wake up every day with the desire to do good work. And enough money did indeed come over the years to enable us to grow to five times our original size. And we’ve been blessed to work with some great people both on the employee and client side – way too many to name, but you know who you are. I hope you’re still with us and reading this wherever you are. I say thanks to you. I toast you with my imaginary shot. Twenty-one is the age of potential. The best is yet to come.

About Steve Deiters

Steve graduated from Miami University in 1982, before flexing his creative muscle at Creative Dimensions, Richardson Advertising, Stockton West Burkhardt, and Tepe Hensler Westerkamp before co-founding The Creative Department in 1992. A writer by trade, Steve brings decades of strategy development, acrylic ad trophies and inspired creative work to a wide range of clients.