CCFC Advertising
150 East Huron, Suite 1250 • Chicago, Illinois 60611
p. 312.649.6300
f. 312.649.6316
CCFC Advertising
150 East Huron, Suite 1250 • Chicago, Illinois 60611
p. 312.649.6300
f. 312.649.6316
Check out our new spot for the American Cancer Society.
CCFC's campaign including print, radio & web & tv wins Gold in the Healthcare Marketing Awards!
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(Click on thumbnails to view ad.)
Want to make a bigger impact in your marketplace? Not connecting with your customers? We can help.
We are CCFC, a Chicago advertising agency. Yes, we create television commercials, websites, print ads, etc. But that's not what we really do.
What we really do is create powerful brands with powerful messages based on insights about your target audience that will cause them to act; act so that you can reach your business goals.
Take a look around our site. Check out the powerful messages and advertising we've created for our clients in healthcare, business services, not-for-profit and consumer products.
Give us a call. We can help you find the right message to win in your marketplace too.
150 East Huron Avenue
Suite 1250
Chicago, Illinois 60611
We're located in downtown Chicago, one block east of the Magnificent Mile in the business tower of the Avenue Hotel.
We're a collection of advertising and strategic branding specialists who have all worked at major US agencies and who have come together to put impact back into media messaging. With a focused and proven process and a genuine love for our business, we bring decades of experience and giga-bytes of new ideas to help our clients achieve their business goals.
George Kase, President
Michael Cheney, Creative Director
Ben Counts, Creative Director
Ron Coil, Executive Producer
Kirk Borland, Director of Strategic Planning
We create messages that have real power to move people in the marketplace. Through our process and understanding of your business challenges and goals, we communicate in all media, traditional, new and experimental, to affect and influence the people you need to reach.
Here is a list of services we offer our clients;
Advertising:
Television, Radio, Print, & Outdoor Advertising
Brand Development
Strategic Planning
Graphic Design
Market Research
Direct Marketing
Guerilla Marketing
Product Development
Digital:
Web Site Design and Development for consumer web sites and corporate intranets and extranets.
Content Management Systems
Application Design and Development
Flash Application Design and Development
Streaming Rich Media and Video
Search Engine Optimization
Online Advertising
Google and Search Engine Keyword Advertising
Podcasts
Blogs and Forums
Film/Video:
Television Ads & PSAs
Web Videos
Corporate Videos
Sales/Promotion Videos
Infomercials
Anyone who works in our business for any length of time gathers an assortment of various principles that work for them. Here are a few that we've used along the way for some of our more successful compaigns.
Process #23: Take Advantage of What You've Got.
Sometimes a brand's existing equities are overlooked in favor of creating something new. But, when you have a rich valued history, why not leverage what you've already established in people's minds? That's what we did for the Vienna brand when we proclaimed their pre-eminence as Chicago's Hot Dog.
Process #12: Change Perceptions When Needed.
Sometimes the worst problem you have is being too well known, especially when people mistakenly see you as dated or irrelevant. That's why we re-cast The Salvation Army from quaint bell-ringers into the relevant, contemporary, year-round and activist role that they really occupy.
Process #17: Know What the Customer Believes.
Before we can hope to motivate them on your behalf, take the time and go to the the trouble to determine what your prospective customers already think. (It's often surprisingly different from what you or we might have thought.) With ICAP, we discovered how John Q. Public really viewed the rich.
| HEALTHCARE FINANCIAL SERVICES BUSINESS SERVICES | CONSUMER PRODUCTS & SERVICES RETAIL GOVERNMENT NOT FOR PROFIT GAMING MEDIA |
Working with CCFC was not just a great way to develop an effective advertising program but also an opportunity for our leadership team to learn about our own brand. Their brand development work significantly increased new donor donations strengthening our 105 years of service to the community.
J. Ryan Williams
Former Director, Boys & Girls of Chicago
CCFC is a great creative partner. Tight production, creative insight, and a great understanding of what it means to bring a brand to life through media.
Amber Naslund
Gettys
Congratulations..... the full page ad dropped today and the internal response to the TV has been wonderful. I made a presentation to the entire Senior Management Group of the Hospital at the leadership meeting on Tuesday..... the compliments were bountiful. Your work on this was
outstanding!
Ivy Bennett
Former Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer
The University of Chicago Hospitals
We receive daily inquires generated from the web site CCFC built. Our current on-line sales account for nearly 35% of our gross sales! We couldn't be more pleased.
Stuart Smiley
President, Tower Lighting
We'd love to hear from you! If you want to learn more about us and how we might be able to help you make a difference in your market, please contact George Kase, our President.
312.640.3515
info@ccfc.com
CCFC produced (3) new TV spots for Grant Thornton. Take a look!
Global Television Spot
Long Time Television Spot
Soccer Television Spot
The CCFC staff are professional and excellent to work with. Their work for Illinois has been both award winning and nationally recognized.
Mike Stout
Director, Traffic Safety
Illinois Department of Transportation
CCFC made it so easy to transition into my new role at Director of Marketing. They provided training and support while keeping the regular operations running smoothly.
Suzanne Phillips
Director of Marketing
Dreyer Medical Clinic
In 2001, our unaided awareness was 5%, and our revenues were $320 million. By 2008, awareness grew to 37% and revenues to over $1 billion. I credit a lot of that revenue growth to brand building and I credit a lot of the brand building to CCFC.
Ed Russ
Chief Marketing Officer
Grant Thornton
Prove the benefits of your product or service using powerful web video.
Internet Video watchers are active buyers - two thirds say they have taken action after seeing an online video message.
When your target visits your website, you have their undivided attention. Take advantage of this opportunity and showcase your offerings to them with video.
Ideal for:
• Product Demonstrations
• Customer Testimonials
• Service Offerings
CCFC is a leader in online video production. Our strategic and creative staff will produce a superior quality video for you either from scratch or using your existing footage. Using professional talent or “real people”, strategic copywriting, high-impact visual effects and expert editing, CCFC will create a powerful online video message that makes your audience take action.
Call Meg Wheaton to learn more 312-640-3520.
Here is an example of an effective video produced specifically for the web by CCFC for the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Methodist Hospital won top honors at this years Healthcare Marketing Awards for this spot promoting their weight loss clinic.
Director of Strategic Planning
Kirk joined CCFC in the early 90's and served as the Agency's President from 1994 to 2004. During this period of rapid growth, CCFC became increasingly recognized for unexpected creative solutions rooted in smart strategic insights. Together with their Client partners, Kirk and the management team launched new brands, repositioned older brands and helped a diverse client roster achieve leadership in highly competitive categories by putting customer research and understanding at the forefront of the creative process.
Kirk stepped down as head of the Agency in Fall 2004 to focus more single-mindedly on strategic planning and the business development process. This represented a return to the marketing and consumer studies that marked Kirk's career path from his earliest days on Procter & Gamble brands to EVP for packaged goods clients at DDB Worldwide housed in Chicago.
Kirk holds a Masters from Northwestern University's Medill School and has served as a visiting lecturer at both his alma mater as well as DePaul University.
Creative Director/Art
Mike is a founding partner of CCFC, and directs the art and graphic output for the agency. While his most satisfying accomplishments are the success of the marketing programs of his clients, he has won many creative awards including first prize in the Athena Awards (best newspaper ad in America), a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Film Festival.Creative Director/President
George was a co-founder of CCFC in 1987, and in 1995 he rejoined us after a four year stint at Wells Rich Greene, where he was Vice President, Executive Creative Director heading up the effort for the $65mm Midas International account, Cub Foods, and others.
Prior to that, George was a Vice President, Group Creative Director for the J. Walter Thompson/Chicago office on Kraft, Oscar Mayer, Northern Telecom, Ameritech, La Choy Foods, Fisher Nuts, Northwestern Mutual Life, and more.
Before JWT, George was an equity associate and Creative Director for Lou Beres and Associates/Chicago where he created award-winning work for Turtle Wax and Ohio Art Toys (makers of the world famous Etch-A-Sketch), and Lake Shore Bank.
George's creative work has been recognized in the Clio's, the One Show, The New York and Chicago International Film Festivals, the CA Annul, and the New York and LA Art directors Awards.
As President of CCFC, George oversees all operations and ensures we exceed all of our client's expectations in every area.
George has a B.A. in Psychology and Masters of Architecture from the University of Illinois. George once made a pair of shoes.
Creative Director/Copy
The Catholic nuns at Ben’s grade schools all called him “the school artist,” due to his gift for art and drawing, which he exploited by doing posters for school events, thereby currying their favor and enhancing his grades. This eventually led Ben to advertising.
Ben honed his craft at some of the best shops in the nation, including Leo Burnett, Burrell and DMB&B. His thinking has enhanced such brands as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch. Harry Caray even dubbed Ben “the man who made Harry Caray famous” in appreciation of his Cub Fan/Bud Man campaign. At CCFC, his ability to distill complicated thoughts down to a short, memorable message has resulted in “The Salvation Army… We’re Fighting For A Better World,” “Advocate Health Care… Better Healthcare Begins With Listening” and many other campaigns.
Ben’s desire to make the world a better place keeps him passionate about noble causes such as Boys and Girls Clubs, Shriver Center for Poverty Law, the American Cancer Society and more. Other passions are art, theatre, movies, music, songwriting and food.
Executive Producer
Before becoming a founding partner of CCFC, Ron had established a film production company in 1986 after many years as a well-recognized and respected still photographer.
Ron began his career as an assistant photographer in a catalogue photography studio following his graduation from Ray Vogue College of Design in 1970. He subsequently served as an assistant to a number of Chicago's top advertising photographers.
In 1977, Ron started his own studio. He's worked for many of the city's major agencies and design firms and received national exposure for his work on Halston, Jovan, Helene Curtis, Turtle Wax, Molex, Wilson Sporting Goods, Quaker Oats, International Harvester, Borg Warner, Bell & Howell, Oscar Mayer, and many others.
Ron has produced radio and television spots for clients such as Advocate Health Care, Grand Victoria Casino, Grant Thornton, University of Chicago Hospitals, The Salvation Army and more.
In his recent white paper, "Creativity in the Service of Accountability," Kirk Borland discusses the challenges and solutions for delivering and maintaining accountability in the client and agency relationship.
Kirk Borland is our Director of Strategic Planning at CCFC. From his earliest days on Procter & Gamble brands to EVP for packaged goods clients at DDB Worldwide, Kirk Borland brings extensive experience and a single-minded focus to strategic planning and the process of business development.
White Paper Excerpt
Historically, the problem of attaching accountability to the creative message has been a failure of measurement techniques. And in the absence of effective and reliable measurement, marketers could neither document the benefit of good creative nor isolate the waste (and lost opportunity) associated with ineffective creative. For most marketers the choices, such as they were, boiled down to either doing a live in-market test or doing some form of simulated testing designed to mimic the "real world".
We create messages that have real power to move people in the marketplace. Through our process and understanding of your business challenges and goals, we communicate in all media, traditional, new and experimental, to affect and influence the people you need to reach.
Here is a list of Case Studies we currently offer:
For more information, please contact:
Kathryn Neal
Director of Business Development
312.640.3520 | kneal@ccfc.com
We create messages that have real power to move people in the marketplace. Through our process and understanding of your business challenges and goals, we communicate in all media, traditional, new and experimental, to affect and influence the people you need to reach.
Here is a list of Case Studies we currently offer:
For more information, please contact:
Kathryn Neal
Director of Business Development
312.640.3520 | kneal@ccfc.com