Core Creative

This quarter’s Spark Award winners go to: Angela, Janee and Chris! Each quarter, we select our best Bring It nominations (our employee-nominated honors for those who go above and beyond) to award our special Spark distinction to individuals whose work embodies our values - Connection, Ownership, Resourcefulness and Energy. Keep up the great work!

We are so thrilled to have partnered with our client ThedaCare on their cardiovascular campaign, which kicked off with this spot during the Super Bowl. We dynamically feature their distinctive brand colors to highlight the arrival of the top cardiovascular experts that have chosen ThedaCare as their destination to deliver exceptional care. Congrats to team ThedaCare!

With 2025 in full swing, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the incredible projects and partnerships that shaped our 2024. Here are a few of our favorites:  ✨ Highlighting the surprisingly human care behind heart and cancer services at TriHealth ✨ Enhancing the online presence of Pulmonary Hypertension Association to help people find meaningful support when their lives are touched by pulmonary hypertension  ✨ Reaching new levels of engagement (over 100M impressions) through media relations with our partners at Sentry  ✨ Promoting new industry-leading neuro and sensory innovations from Natus Medical Incorporated  ✨ Getting all hands (and all paws!) on deck to support fundraising for Wisconsin Humane Society We’re beyond grateful to all the clients we collaborated with throughout 2024. Thank you for an amazing year! Explore our projects: https://lnkd.in/gP6NerS8

A great read from EMARKETER. According to VML’s Future 100 report for 2025, consumers feel that “very few brands stand out as different.” https://lnkd.in/g9bb2wkw Marketers have noted a prioritization of performance marketing in recent years, and it creates a lot of sameness. But the pendulum is swinging back, and brand building is becoming increasingly important in standing out. In one of our recent articles, we show how: ⭐ Long-term growth and equity should not come at the expense of short-term wins. Balance is the key. ⭐ Having a clear and consistent brand narrative is critical to building long-term equity. ⭐ Investing in your brand helps boost the success of your short-term performance marketing efforts. #Branding #Marketing #Storytelling #BrandStrategy #PerformanceMarketing #CustomerEngagement

After launching the lifeinspired™ brand campaign and expanding their primary care services, ThedaCare again sought our creative support to increase awareness of their primary care offerings in a way that aligned with the new brand we’d created together. The We Look Forward to Seeing You, Healthy campaign emphasized personalized care, helping inform and empower patients to stay healthy through ThedaCare’s wide range of care options. See our full work with ThedaCare: https://hubs.li/Q032LnPb0

In December, we honored our long-time (20 years!) Creative Director and friend, Jerry Higgins, as our first retiree from Core Creative. No one has impacted our culture, our work, our clients, or our lives like Jerry – and his legacy will remain a big part of the Core story. At his retirement celebration, we gave him a special send off with a Lifetime Luminary Award, an office renamed in his honor, and a new design achievement award: The Golden Jerry! Jerry was the first recipient, but this will be a new annual award tradition (and trophy, of course) for our talented designers. “To know Jerry is to love Jerry. He is a rare talent, a supportive colleague, a hilarious character, a generous soul, and the most lovely of human beings. To say we’ll miss seeing him in person or on a Slack call every day is a ridiculous understatement. But we know our paths will cross again. We’ll make sure of it!” said Core Chief Executive Officer, Ward Alles. Happy Retirement, Jerry!

Since the days of dial-up in December 1994, we’ve been helping brands shine, and we couldn’t be prouder to share our success with you: our partners, our team members—new and old—and the community we call home. The final memory on our list of 30 celebrates what has guided us through it all: our brand philosophy. 30. Coined in 2008, "Say it. Live it." embodies our human-centered approach to branding. It’s about uncovering a brand’s unique position and purpose and ensuring that it’s lived out authentically—by its people, for its audience. We don’t tell you who you are. We help guide, elevate, and articulate the best parts of your brand in a way that truly resonates. As we close out our 30th-anniversary celebration, we’re filled with gratitude for three decades of incredible memories, partnerships, and impact. Here’s to carrying our philosophy into a bright and exciting New Year—continuing to say it and live it, every single day. Happy New Year from all of us at Core!

While our team, our clients, and our culture have made Core a 30-year success story, many of our favorite memories are what we like to call Core Lore: things that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else but our weird and wonderful workplace. 29. The holidays are a special time for us, and we’ve often celebrated by flexing our storytelling skills with fun holiday videos. In 2009, our team created a live-action remake of one scene from the 1964 animated Rudolph – and managed to win a Bell Award for it. Though it’s been 15 years, it remains one of our most cherished holiday memories. Even after 30 years, the fun is far from over. But we’ve got one more memory to share as we head into the new year. (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘸𝘰 - 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵)

While our team, our clients, and our culture have made Core a 30-year success story, many of our favorite memories are what we like to call Core Lore: things that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else but our weird and wonderful workplace. 27. How about the time we surprised our creative director, Jerry Higgins, by staging an on-site office wedding, complete with his real bride-to-be? Jerry recalls being panicked that we had turned this into the real deal – without inviting his mother. Lucky for him that wasn’t the case. Jerry and Mary are still happily married, and our team is still talking about what a great wedding it was! 28. Manby. What is there to say about Manby? This half-man, half-baby, total abomination has been haunting our business since 2003 and has become Core’s unofficial mascot. Today he (usually) resides in one of our office spaces, aptly named the Manby Manor, with some other unsettling, anthropomorphic characters–but he sometimes joins us for team outings and AdWorkers’ trivia nights! (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦 - 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦-𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘙𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘭𝘱𝘩)