We’re pleased to announce our first class of ThinkNW Marketing All-Stars. Chosen by the ThinkNW board and executive team, this program kicks off a tradition of recognizing the unique marketing talent that drives our industry and region forward.
We asked our honorees to share a bit about their work, lives and what the Pacific Northwest means to them.
Here’s what Deb Morrison, the Chambers Distinguished Professor of Advertising (and associate dean) of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications, had to say.
16 years at Oregon. Before that, the University of Texas for about 400 years.
In many ways, I see my role as a talent developer. I help students find what they want to do, work with them to do great things, then become a bit of an agent for them—times 1,000 on any given day.
I've helped the industry over the years by guiding these smart people to good work at agencies. In the last couple of years, my accomplishment has been my own realization of the ways advertising wields a double-edged sword toward the climate emergency.
It's simple: strategic and creative skills are precisely what is needed to help move people's awareness of climate issues to real action and activism. But at the same time, the industry is culpable in multiple ways for misinformation and disinformation, greenwashing, and duplicitous messages. It's time we reset.
Certainly lifestyle: the coast, the mountains, the air, the trees, the rivers, the landscape make for a love of place bound in joy. Look at that breathtaking sky, and your day is made better no matter what.
The creative community here has all the markers that research tells us are important for a creative community: green spaces, rich creative legacy and history, transparency, working for diversity and equity, supportive institutions. The Pacific Northwest is a brand in ascension as people look at the left coast for interesting and progressive places.
