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We're a mutt - part brand consultancy, part design shop, part ad agency. We realize that integrating these disciplines on an equal footing into a single process makes us an oddball. After all, these functions have never really gotten along. Traditionally, they have competed for marketers' favor and budgets, all to often to the detriment of the brands they ostensibly serve.
We think that's stupid
Today's marketplace is a gladiator pit. To succeed over time, marketers need much more thatn a new logo or clever TV ad. Above all, companies today need greater relevance across the multiple ways their brands are experienced.
We exist to create relevant brand experiences
Where there is relevance, there are shared values, mutual repect and empathy - the ingredients for any strong relationship.
Therefore, everything we execute - whether it's a packaging design, a below-the-line marketing idea, a promotion, an integrated ad campaign or a product idea - is intentionally crafted to boost a brand's relevance. The goal is to transform consumers into irrationally loyal fans, the surest path we know to fame and fortune.
It is a long, uphill road from strategic Sandinista to El Presidente, but for the crowning majesty of The Great Society, Scott Cowan walked barefoot. In his lustrous career, Scott has sold popcorn door-to-door, gotten up at 4:00 AM for seven consecutive summers to pick strawberries and endured the drunken heckling of friends while working the graveyard shift as a busboy at Perkins Cake & Steak. More recently, Scott was a partner and strategy director at JohnsonCowanHanrahan, as well as a strategist at Wieden+Kennedy (Portland), Arnold (Boston), Publicis (Seattle) and elsewhere.
Scott has had the good fortune of working on some fantastic global accounts like Nike, Volkswagen, Amazon.com, Nestl and many others. Scott is a relentlessly curious, multi-dimensional thinker who brings a holistic perspective to clients' businesses.
Recently, Scott and his family had the experience of a lifetime when they adopted Tian, a one-year-old girl from China. It was especially memorable because of the crowds his Mandarin-conversant five-year-old daughter Charlotte drew wherever she went.
Scott is also The Great Society's reigning table tennis champion, having trounced the field in the Holiday Classic, thus raising the notoriety of The Great Society Table Tennis Association to unforeseen heights amongst table sport aficionados.
The pathway to The Great Society has been both divergent and meandering for Randall Reed Schoonover. Randall's most humble beginings on the family's near-century farm near Molalla, Oregon, came to a crashing halt when his father, table tennis legend Irwin C. Schoonover, auctioned off the acreage in the 80s. With a degree and little else in hand, Randall made his way to San Francisco, where he lived in fellow Society member Scott Cowan's hallway closet for a short time.
There, like his grandfather before him, he practiced a variety of trades including parking valet, balloon delivery boy and gut-bucket rock guitarist before finding his way into art school and a career as an adman.
Nigel Williams, Randall's first creative director at TBWA\Chiat\Day, still insists that he was so shorthanded that he swore he'd hire the next warm body that walked through the door. So began Randall's six-year saga as an art director on the Nissan account. Years of freelance and Associate Creative Director roles at Foote Cone & Belding and JWT followed before Randall headed back to Portland, Oregon, and once again joined Scott Cowan at JohnsonCowanHanrahan.
Randall oversees all creative development at The Society and is himself a limitless source of challenging, provocative ideas. He has three fantastic children and an ancient yellow Lab named Victor and works tirelessly each day for the betterment of his clients' businesses and the shining glory of The Great Society.
Let the good deeds of The Great Society spread far and wide! A lifetime of traveling, makes Jen the perfect missionary for the Great Society. After school, she and a friend did that epic, yearlong, 18-country around-the-world pilgrimage that the rest of us kick ourselves for never having done. She's also lived abroad in both Spain and Peru.
Jen has worked both sides of the table in her career. She's had marketing jobs at Oracle, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Food.com and elsewhere. And she had a memorable run in account management at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners before moving to Portland and joining Scott and Randall to manage day-to-day Society operations and act as primary client liaison.
Of all of us, Jen has the best last name, hands down. For that, she can thank Amir Tadjedin, Esq., her husband and the coolest, smartest, most debonair lawyer we know. The future of The Great Society is secure now that Jen is pregnant with the next generation of Societicians. This will be Jen and Amir's second child - Clementine, the sergeant at arms of Society security, was their first and would gladly risk life, limb and tail to protect the hallowed halls of The Great Society.
The benevolent voice of The Great Society beckoned Matt Warner who dutifully answered the call. Matt grew up in Anamosa, Iowa, which, in addition to a whole lot of farmers, is home to the "White Stone Fortress of the West." It is also the birthplace of Grant Wood, who painted this little ditty. After Matt maximized the available local career opportunities detasseling corn, baling hay and delivering Domino's Pizza, he shipped out to college on an ROTC scholarship. Just weeks from flight school, where he was to learn to fly helicopters, Matt blew out his knee, thus necessitating career change #1.
After parting ways with Uncle Sam, Matt worked briefly as a substitute teacher in Waterloo before meeting his future wife, which ultimately led to career change #2 (design) and a move to Portland. Once in the Rose City, Matt got married and did tours at Sandstrom Design, Wieden+Kennedy and Nike. Most recently, he was design director at Publicis (Seattle) where he created a design group from scratch.
Matt is a classic "big picture" kind of guy who enjoys thinking through all the different ways brands can be meaningfully experienced. He has done it all in his design career, for clients large (Nike, adidas, Microsoft, Miller Beer, T-Mobile) and small (you name it).
When he's not working, he's usually playing with his three great kids (Silas, Jack and Grace) or Cooper, his flamboyant Rhodesian ridgeback. Through his righteous dedication and honorable stewardship, The Great Society and its clients are propelled to even greater triumphs and achievements.
Studio Management. Equality, justice and dignity, three hallmarks of The Great Society charter may be best represented by Renaissance woman Lenore Prato. She broke the gender barrier in her New York little league at the tender age of nine before going on to sell veggie burritos at Dead shows, work summers as a hair salon receptionist and get an architecture degree. She also spent a few carefree pre-childbirth months surfing with husband Ken in Central America.
Lenore worked tirelessly as a designer in the Wieden+Kennedy Studio and also did freelance architecture and graphic design projects for Nike, Columbia Sportswear and others. Now she's the glue that holds The Great Society together not only managing the studio, but also dabbling in print production, project management and many other indispensable tasks.
When she's not managing the assembly line on the GS factory floor, Lenore spends as much time with her family as possible. She can often be seen playground hopping on her bike, pulling Adeline and Lucia, her adorable daughters, in their Burley trailer. Lenore and her family recently purchased a parcel of land on the Oregon Coast that once housed Brootens Baths, a moderately famous sanitarium founded on "the miraculous powers of kelp ore." She hopes to build a small eco-community there someday but not until her mission to propel The Great Society to divine sublimity is accomplished.
Does citizenship in The Great Society lead to fulfillment and happiness? Dennis Fitzgerald prefers what he's doing now to anything else he's ever done. Although, when you've been an aluminum siding salesman, a telemarketer and a waiter at Olive Garden, that might not be saying much.
Dennis was born in Vietnam and was raised in New York by a father who encouraged and supported his creative experimentation. His father helped foster a deep love of music, literature and film. After dabbling in rock bands, traveling and attending art school in Texas, Dennis headed west for Vancouver Film School. While there, he directed a documentary on the underappreciated sport of curling which won numerous international awards, including a Genie, the Canadian Oscar. Upon graduating, Dennis decided that to become a better director, he'd follow in the footsteps of his favorite maestros and concentrate on editing. He has edited music videos, feature documentaries and commercials for MTV, Netflix, Nike, Ford, PBS and others.
In 2004, Dennis started Your Mom Films, a music video and commercial production company. He has since directed and edited videos for The Shins, Ben Folds, The Decemberists, The Thermals and others. An extremely imaginative problem solver and innovative thinker, Dennis (aka The Gondolier - so named for his penchant for striped shirts and oversize paddles), is also a seasoned table tennis practitioner. He recently won Best Nickname and other awards at the 2006 Great Society Table Tennis Association Awards Gala confirming the obvious: Through the dogged pursuit of our goals, we grow ever closer to the finish line in the pursuit of tranquility.
Broadcast Producer. It has been written that a Great Society member's most valuable asset is the knowledge they've gained through their failures. Producer extraordinaire Neil's worst job has, in hindsight, proven to be his most valuable. When he was but a naif of 15, he worked the counter at KFC, a job he eventually quit 20 minutes before his shift so he could egg the junior high bus with his friends. It taught him that he wanted more out of life and that quality time with friends beats working the deep fryer every time.
Following graduation from Vancouver Film School in British Columbia where he first met fellow Societician Dennis Fitzgerald, Neil spent five years as a television commercial and music video production manager and producer. In 2005 he produced Kelly Reichardt's second feature film, "Old Joy", which was an official selection at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2007. It was also in indieWIRE's and Entertainment Weekly's list of top 10 films of the year. In 2006 he co-produced Gus Van Sant's "Paranoid Park," which premiered and won a special award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. He is currently in pre-production on Reichardt's third feature, "Train Choir."
With Neil's meticulous organization The Great Society and its clients shall wholly realize their visions and dreams.
Graphic Design. Great Society member David has been too busy making this website to write a bio. Soon.
From the fertile valleys and cultivated fields of this vast land, The Great Society reaps the best and the brightest. Born sometime between Woodstock and Watergate, Rebecca grew up in a large family of itinerant saffron harvesters. Trained at an early age to employ her fine motor skills and acute sense of color in the extraction of saffron threads, it was only natural that Rebecca would gravitate towards the visual arts.
While in her teens, her family's vagabond ways led her to an apprenticeship with a painter of supermarket sale signs. It was here that she perfected her eye for composition, her love of typography and her penchant for hyperbole. Studying this dying art took her from New York to Philadelphia to Rome and back.
Unable to cure her wanderlust, Rebecca sketched and kerned her way through the mid-Atlantic states and Europe, eventually landing in the Pacific Northwest. During that time, she managed to squeeze in design stints with some of the world's best-known fashion and athletic brands including Ralph Lauren, Nike, adidas and Finish Line. Rebecca is also a sensational cook and has been known to make a mean risotto to feed the hungry mouths of The Great Society.
Scott Cowan, President
503.227.5758 (general)
503.781.0445 (mobile)
The Great Society
Gadsby Bldg. 1306 NW Hoyt St. #202
Portland, Oregon 97209
