ALUMNI. RE-ENGAGED. - Columbus College of Art and Design

EXHIbITS ALUMNI
STEVE STONE,
CLASS Of ’83
Creating the “yahoo! yodel” is just one of the
creative peaks in the 25-year career of steve
stone (CCad ’83), chairman and creative
director of heat, a san francisco-based
advertising agency.
heat is a small agency with big clients: electronic
arts, Cinemax, pepsiCo, adobe, disneyland
resort, and Condé nast media group, whose
magazine titles include The New Yorker, Vogue,
Vanity Fair, Wired, Lucky and GQ. encompassing
tV and radio spots, print ads, outdoor and
Internet-based media, heat’s creative work is
quirky, imaginative, and often funny.
“we want to be seen as a company of ideas,”
says stone. when hiring, “we look for people
who are explorers, who aren’t afraid to
take a chance, and who have passions other
than ads and awards. artists, authors, even
jugglers sometimes make better advertising
creative people than those whose whole life is
advertising.”
though he now values the small agency
environment that affords him hands-on creative
involvement with each client, stone launched his
20
“From library research
to actual design, all
activities at CCAD
generated creative
rub-off. That’s the
advantage of a
college focused on
the creative spirit.”
STEVE STONE,
CCad ‘83
career at a big agency, the san francisco office
of ketchum advertising. he landed the job
right out of CCad, where he says a copywriting
course in his junior year helped him develop his
conceptual skills.
“advertising was really different back then,
all about tV, print, and outdoor,” he says.
“obviously, there was no online, no nontraditional,
guerrilla stuff. tV was king.”
after 13 years at various agencies, stone and
three friends launched their own agency, Black
rocket, in 1996. a young marketing executive
for yahoo!, a recent startup itself, saw a brief
newspaper story about the fledgling company
and invited stone to pitch their business. “we
said, ‘sure, but what’s yahoo!?’” stone laughs.
“at that point, we didn’t really know what our
agency was going to be, but we knew we
wanted to do interesting stuff. we had a great
meeting and won the business.”
a few years after teaming up with an advertising
conglomerate to give yahoo! the worldwide
network it eventually required, stone bought
Global brands influenced
by Steve Stone include:
back his interest in Black rocket and relaunched
the company as heat in 2004. the new agency
saw its business double in the first year, though
stone says growth has slowed somewhat as the
economy takes its toll on ad budgets.
to be competitive, agencies now have to
embrace and excel at reaching customers via
new media such as viral videos and microsites.
“this was kind of hard for me to accept, because
I love doing tV, print, and radio,” says stone.
“But online is huge. you have to figure it out, and
create one-on-one relationships with customers.”
one of the highlights of the heat website is a
viral video starring rocker tommy lee for client
handson mobile.
stone’s experience as a student at CCad
continues to help him to create ads that are
fresh and new. “at CCad the creative focus was
never diluted,” he says. “from library research to
actual design, all activities at CCad generated
creative rub-off. that’s the advantage of a
college focused on the creative spirit.”
to see more examples of stone’s work, visit
www.sfheat.com.
WINTER 2009 IMAGE MAGAZINE
21