Draftfcb's Dan Zigulich Takes on Yet Another Challenge
SourceEcreative sits down with Draftfcb's "Ziggy," who returned to the agency last year to run its integrated production department.
Draftfcb's Dan Zigulich Takes on Yet Another Challenge
Having seen the business from the account management side, the agency producer side and the production company side, "Ziggy" now presides over the integration of production departments at one of Chicago’s top tier agencies. His big mantra today? Let's all sit down and talk...
By Anthony Vagnoni
Dan Zigulich -- Ziggy to everyone who knows him -- works out of a corner office on the 15th floor of the Draftfcb building in Chicago. A native Chicagoan, Ziggy is a rare breed in the business, having worked on the account, creative and production sides of the agency business, as well as having run his own production company, Z Group Productions, for 10 years. These days he presides over a department that’s working to not only keep up the momentum of the merged offices of Draft and FCB -- seen by many as the new ‘big kid on the block’ among Chicago agencies -- but also to streamline and supervise the process of producing integrated work for a variety of clients. Draftfcb handles such brands as Coors, Miller Light, Taco Bell, SC Johnson and others, producing work that appears across media platforms and delivery channels.
A first-generation American, Ziggy is a dog lover -- not to mention a big family man -- who initially thought he was going to be a high school coach, but events took his career in a different path. Yet there’s still a bit of the coach and teacher in him, as he displayed in a wide-ranging SourceEcreative interview held in his office recently, interrupted only by the occasional demands for ball-throwing or ear-scratching issued by Payton and Barron, his pooches, whom he brings to work most days.
SourceEcreative: There aren’t a lot of people who change their jobs in this business. But you’ve been an account person, a creative, a producer, and a production company owner. Walk us through this.
Dan Zigulich: I have my Graduate Degree in Higher Education. My original intent was to work at that level and also coach a sport. Coming out of graduate school, I specialized in career counseling, because I had to pick an area specialization and I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Coming out of grad school I worked in recruiting, and was interviewing with tech companies for recruiting jobs, places like Honeywell, Standard Oil, General Dynamics, etc., and I’m the furthest thing from an engineer. I was all set to take a job at Standard Oil of Indiana when the head of HR there, who was about to offer me the job, said that before I accepted it I should talk to a neighbor of hers who was looking for a recruiter. And that turned out to be Bob Vogel, who was head of human resources at FCB. And my response was, ‘What is FCB?’ And so she coached me, and I went straight from her office to the library and looked them up in the old 4A’s agency Red Book. And so I interviewed with Bob, and started working at the agency.
And your job was going to college campuses recruiting for FCB?
Yes, primarily with business school students. I came in and identified the schools we wanted to focus on, and back then everything was oriented toward the MBA. So the list was like the University of Virginia, the University of Chicago, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Indiana. And I’d recruit from those schools for our account management side. After about a year and a half, I informed Bob I would love to learn more about the business, and there was a position open as an assistant account executive on Kraft. He welcomed me to interview for the job, and told me I should contact the account director, since I was recruiting for her opening.
So I called her and said, ‘Let’s go to breakfast tomorrow, I have a bunch of resumes for you.’ So we went to breakfast and I put my resume last. I said to her, ‘Just flip through the first few--the last guy you’re gonna love. He’s gonna have the least experience, because everyone else has an MBA, but if you don’t judge him on the resume you’re going to get the best person.’ She said, ‘Why don’t we just go to that person?’ She didn’t read my name, and she’s going through the resume and looking at me and I said, ‘Terry, read the name.’ And then she was like, ‘Oh my God, this is great, let’s do it.’ And the next day I was working on Kraft.
The one thing I was missing, being the low man on the totem pole, was I wasn’t making any ads. About a year and a half in, there was an opening on Payless Shoe Stores. To me, it was a retail client, which was great—they did two ads a month, and so I jumped on it. I did a three to four year run with them, and their business exploded. And somewhere during my Payless run, a light bulb went off and I said, ‘Maybe this is what I should do.’ So I started to try and move my way into production, because back then we didn’t cross pollinate.
It was pretty closed then, in terms of switching sides in the agency?
My human resources background helped out there, because it allowed me to get to know the whole organization. So I didn’t grow in just one department. In the early days I got to know everyone everywhere. So I let it be known to certain people that I wanted to think about production, and that I wanted to write. It took a little politics and a couple of years to happen. Eventually they let me get into production. Later I worked on Coors Light for a couple years.
Who was the creative director at the time?
It was Lou Centlivre and Mike Rogers as co-creative directors, then it was just Lou. Fortunately, Lou liked me and my energy. I did seven years in account management before they let me make the move. Then the question was, ‘Are you going to be a writer or a producer?’ So I wrote and sold two national ads for Payless, and I got to write them and produce them myself.
There were three creative groups then, and they operated autonomously from each other and hired their own producers. I worked under Ethan Revson’s group. So I went and shot and produced the ads that I wrote, and they stunk. They came back to me afterward and said, ‘Ya know, Ziggy, we think production is better for you.’ So I became a producer, and started all over at the bottom.
How did you transition from production back to the account side?
I spent about seven years in production. And along the way, I always felt that I wanted my own business. I was always sort of strategizing how to do it. I was planning on leaving -- I had been at FCB 14 years, and I thought that was a good balance -- and was ready to go out on my own, but they asked me to stick around and go back to work on the Payless account. The account was in trouble, and they said, ‘No one knows the business like you.’ So we kept it and I went back on the account side to run it, but never lost the bug to start my own thing. Once I fulfilled my two year commitment to the agency, I left.
And your ‘own thing’ was a production company?
I always thought I wanted my own agency, but the hardest part was being able to provide the broader range of services that you’d need. Besides, I could never find the right partner. There’s a big difference between saying you’re going out on your own and actually going out on your own. I got the runaround a lot, and eventually needed a vehicle so I could get going. And I love production, it’s a very creative business. I felt it gave me a model to put together a creative team without needing to have someone to go into partnership with on it.
What year did you start your business? And what was it like when you first opened your doors?
That was in 1998. I ran it for ten years.
When I first went to banks to secure lines of credit, they’d ask, ‘Why would you do this now?’ And I thought, ‘What a great opportunity.’ Someone has to fill the niche. And I believed that. There were local companies back then that just so happened to either go out of business or move their business to L.A. So for Chicago, although the industry was down, there was clearly a void of services.
When I got into the production business, I found some young directors and took on a philosophy that we were going to develop all our own talent. I found kids right out of film school. That was my pitch; I’d tell people, ‘I’ve got three directors and no reels. Can I come tell you about tem?’ And people would welcome it. We’d go to agencies and I’d show the reels. It was all short films and experimental work, and I’d find someone that would light up to the work, then I would massage it into an opportunity.
When people talk about the Draftfcb integration of a direct agency with a brand agency, they think of new ways of producing work. Tell me how that works here. What’s the integrated model like?
Well, it’s in its infancy to be honest, and I think it’s finally gaining some traction. I’ll give you a little background. When I came here, this was a newly created position. I loved it, it was a new challenge and very different. There were, at the time, four or five different production silos. There was print over here, a print studio over there, broadcast over here and a technology group. My job was to make it synergistic and get everyone on the same page.
I’ll never forget the first meeting I had with the department heads that first week. Everyone was a little suspect. So I asked them to tell me what they did. These are people that had been here for ten years. One comment from one person who’d been at one of our predecessor agencies for 16 years to another person who’d been here 12 years was, ‘Oh, is that what you do?’ I stopped the meeting and said, ‘Excuse me, can you repeat that question?’ And then I said, ‘Do you think this is a good idea to have us in a room talking?’ And sure enough the light bulbs went off.
Another thing I did when I got here was I talked to everyone in the entire department. Probably 175 people sat in my office. Everyone made a 15 minute appointment for me learn what was on everyone’s mind. And the main thing was, from a production perspective, there needed to be more integration. People felt uninformed, they didn’t understand how they fit into the puzzle, they felt it lacked communication.
So frankly, that was an easy fix -- we immediately established a communications program. Now I meet with our department heads as a group once a week, I meet with each one of them individually once a week, they meet with their teams once a month and we meet as an entire organization once every three months. You know, you can communicate forever and still feel like you’re not communicating. Now we have a structured environment—people know that sooner or later, not in the distant future, they’ll have the opportunity to ask questions and to hear what’s going on with the agency. Production can be an island within an agency, and we needed to integrate it back into the agency. With my being here, it’s given us a voice back into the senior level of the agency.
The second thing we did, we figured if our department heads didn’t talk, our rank and file didn’t talk. So, we created a cross-training program, to steal an old phrase from a Nike commercial. Everyone in the department got a cross-training partner in a different department, and they met once per month for three months, then switched to someone else in a different department. So if you were in the broadcast department, let’s say, you’d get a print producer partner for three months, then a technology partner, etc. So at the end of 15 months, everyone has spent three meetings with someone from all the other departments.
The guidelines were very simple: Participation was mandatory. There was a little resistance at first -- I don’t think anyone liked being told they were going to do this, but I think it caught on very fast and picked up great momentum. It was like, ‘Hey that’s what you do, that’s how it works?’ We just did a complete cycle. Everyone’s had an opportunity to speak with someone of another production discipline three times, and everyone has covered all production business.
Do they collaborate on jobs at all?
I think it’s better when that happens organically. The objectives were very simple: I wanted them to meet and talk about work, but if you didn’t talk about work, at least think it would be nice if you met someone you work with everyday? And we sort of let it take its own structure. And in my opinion, some people made it more valuable to themselves than others. But either way, it was working.
At least when we have group meetings, people talk to each other. The first meeting we had, we went off campus and there was like 180 people. I didn’t know them, and you could tell there was a clear physical disconnect. I asked, ‘Before we start the meeting, can everyone please stand up and go sit next to someone you’ve never talked to before.’ And the whole room just looked at me. Everyone eventually got up and then sat down, and when I asked if they were sitting next to someone they’d never talked to before, just about everyone raised their hand. It was very symbolic.
So, integrating on the human level is what comes first. And then you start infiltrating your systems. You can see projects taking different form when different people get involved. For me, that’s nirvana. That’s when you get proud. You see people getting invited to different meetings than they were before. It’s funny, but there’s a perception that print and digital are two different worlds, which I think is incorrect. Yet those two departments are probably working closer than ever. And it’s often just making introductions and putting people in positions to discuss things. I think a lot has to do with leadership. For example, the two people running those departments: Jason Mitton, who’s a very open-minded young guy, and Julie Regimand, who loves to learn.
What’s the mandate in terms of integrating production at the agency? Does this play a role in Draftfcb’s efforts to create a different type of advertising, one that consumers can respond to in different ways?
I don’t know if it’s production’s role to create a different type of advertising. I always say, our job is to produce the best work at the best value we can. What I think is more prevalent than ever is that idea of value. I think we have to be more value-conscious than before. Our producers here listen to me talk about this constantly. I do come up to this with not only a producer’s background, but an account guy’s background, dealing with clients and working in boardrooms. On top of that, I’ve run my own business. How I look at value might not be a traditional way a producer looks at value.
What’s different about it? Obviously this is influenced by your experience. What constitutes value for you?
Value, for me, is that you cannot compromise the work. The work has to lead the way. The way we execute the work, our number one priority is to deliver the best work at the absolute best value. Work is going to lead the way, but where we have an opportunity for improvement is adding value, such as looking at ways to produce things that haven’t been done before. I think the days of just calling a production company to see who they’ve got is a little antiquated. Difficult to change, but a little antiquated.
While you’re asking for more from your producers, are you simultaneously asking for more from your vendors as well? Everyone on the production and post sides of the business say they’re delivering more at lower margins, working more but making less. Is this the new normal?
Everyone’s margins are getting squeezed. No, my intent is not to ask vendors to produce more for less. Where my head is, I think our producers need to think through their jobs from a different economic perspective, and that has always fallen into the trap of doing it the way it has always been done. That is a little different way of thinking, and it’s a challenge to move off the old dime.
I think we’re obligated to bring value to our clients. That is my belief in my heart. We need to deliver the best work. So that leads the value proposition. But, if we’re doing work for Coors or SC Johnson, by the same token, if we can get that work done at a better value, it’s our obligation to do that. So we should be exploring all four corners of the world, so to speak. We should be exploring new people, new places, new processes, wherever it makes sense. And that is sort of breaking the mold of how it’s been done for 25 years, maybe even 50 years.
Getting people to think that way isn’t easy. There are a lot of variables. There’s the old saying about getting things good, fast or cheap. So if a client wants it fast, you’re eliminating a lot of options for us. But if we can move the needle some -- I’m not saying we should run off and produce stuff around the world. But I am saying that if we could move a little bit every year, we could be five percent more efficient per year. In five years, that’s 20 percent more efficient, and I think that’s pretty good. I believe the procurement people will understand that.
Procurement has become a hot topic button these days. You think it’s business as usual?
If you’re doing your job well, procurement shouldn’t be that scary a thing. One thing we should demonstrate to our clients is that there is no need for procurement. But that’s sort of a pipe dream. From a professional perspective, they’re part of the equation and have been for a long time. It cracks me up that it’s the buzzword right now. It’s like, when weren’t they? When money is tight, things like this always escalate. Even in your home, you become your own procurement officer.
How is the merged Draftfcb different from the old Foote Cone & Belding?
It’s a different place. That was going to be the most interesting thing to me; I knew that, and was no dummy about it. A dialogue happened for a couple years before I actually came back. And in all honestly, I sort of kept it at arm’s length for a while. I wasn’t sure I wanted to come into the merged agency. I remember the first meeting where I said, ‘You guys at the new Draftfcb are the brave ones, I was the chicken shit-- I stayed home and let the tidal wave hit.’ Now the water is receding, I’m coming in on the second wave. I was also risking my business.
The one thing that really impressed me was “rumbles.” In my talking back and forth with Tom O’Keefe (Draftfcb’s ECD, North America), before I came on board, he’d send me materials about the agency to check out. One thing that really caught my eye were what we call here rumbles. When you have a client and you have a business issue with that client, rumbles are very actionable exercises.
How do they work?
It’s a two to three week program that identifies six to eight teams from around the world that might be appropriate to think on this brand in collaboration with the client. It ranges from soup to nuts, a very intense process, and at the end you bring in your thought leaders and you write down a couple strategies. It’s very swift, and at the end you have excellent strategies and ideas. What I love about it is, it’s very actionable. Jonathan Harries (Vice Chairman, Global CCO), had a great quote recently. He said, ‘I’ve probably been through a thousand rumbles, and maybe four haven’t been worth it.’ I remember when Tom told me about these, I thought, ‘This is freaking genius.’
And this is what Foote Cone would have never done. Because the old Foote Cone was very much, ‘this is us, and this is them.’ There was a line between Chicago and New York, a line between Chicago and San Fran. I was very impressed with the cross cultures getting together. And it was a great idea. It’s been a phenomenal tool to us. It brings high value thinking to the brands.
And the other thing I love about being here, is it really that harmonious? Yes, it is. The inclusiveness versus the exclusiveness is night and day, and that is very exciting. Especially for a guy that went from HR to account management to production and back to account management and who had to fight to make all those moves. None of those moves were easy, because everyone told me, ‘No, we don’t do that.’
What were you going to coach in school?
I coach everything. My dream was to get my degree in education and teach high school English and coach football. I still think I’m going to do it. I say, my last job, once I retire from here, I’m going to find a small college that will let me teach their advertising curriculum and coach their freshman baseball team. Just some obscure place, because I do love kids. I have three teenagers of my own. They’re a full time job.
Do they play sports, and if so, have you coached any of them?
Yes, they’re very active. I coached them in everything. My older son is a high school hockey player, and I say the only reason he plays hockey is because it’s the only sport I can’t coach. My youngest guy, he just converted to hockey as well. I don’t coach them, I coach my daughter – she’s in high school and plays volleyball.
Who would be the coach you’d most want to emulate?
Believe it or not, that would be Martin Luther King. You always get that question, if you could have dinner with someone in history who would it be? Mine would be MLK. It’s funny, I’ve never grown up with an idol. Walter Payton, I loved his work ethic. I love people that are very determined as well as compassionate. I love Vince Lombardi, the discipline of Lombardi. He was who he was all the time. Mike Ditka is someone else all the time. I like Pat Reilly of the Miami Heat. That’s where I stole that line from: “Improve five percent a year, and when you wake up after 10 years, you’re 50 percent a different person.” It’s an interesting way to look at life.
Published August 23, 2010
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