Page 68 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2016

chiefs of creativity
WOMEN
ADVERTISING
WOMEN EXECUTIVES
THE WAYDVERTISI LEADING
EXECUTIV
LEADIN
The women who lead advertising agencies on the Mississippi Gulf Coast show they’ve gone way beyond the pioneer days of advertising where females were delegated to being secretaries or copywriters. Today
they re
present
decades o
f experien
ce ranging
from es
tablishing a brand for a multi-million dollar industry
to creating a niche for a trendy small town boutique. They are imaginative problem-solvers who are smart
enough to know it takes teamwork to make campaigns gel and clients shine.
THE WAY
Story by Susan Ruddiman
photos courtesy of Mollie Hillburn, Christie Fountain, Bryant Whelan and Laura Hasty
MOLLIE HILLBURN President
Ad2 Inc. of Gautier | www.ad2inc.net | 228.822.9890
Mollie Hillburn’s approach to clients for the past 20 years is to satisfy her curiosity using a SWOT — an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — for analysis.
“I want to know everything about what drives different businesses,” Hillburn said. “The more I worked with my different businesses I found my passion was to uncover the goals of the business owners and any problems, real
or perceived, preventing them from achieving those goals and developing strategies to overcome said problems and accomplish short term and long term goals.”
She uses her team’s research to implement a promotion that fits their clients’ unique needs. “We negotiate contracts and craft our clients’ budgets to maximize the effectiveness of our communications, tracking the response of our campaigns and continuously working to increase the return on every dollar invested,” she said.
Meet these creative leaders:
68 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • September 2016 FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net
N E
G