THE COTERIE is a creative collective of branding and marketing talent who prefer to free-range their professional services. While fluid, our fractional arrangement seems to produce better work for our clients and a healthier lifestyle for us. This page may refresh with different faces at different times, but rest assured - our network is a deeply interconnected, highly talented, conscientiously committed, tight-knit group of adults minus the usual agency attitude.
WHITNEY MALONEY
Whitney is a versatile marketing manager committed to our clients’ growth. With expertise in multi-channel marketing and lead generation, she excels in audience engagement. A dedicated problem-solver, she ensures client success in the dynamic marketing landscape.
CINDY BRUCKNER
Cindy is a leader in design and art direction. Her visual expression and graphic communication are unparalleled. She brings New York energy and tenacity to every project (even though she lives in Montana!). Her passion and dedication always elevate our client’s brands. She puts their business first, always searching for a fresh, compelling design voice.
KEVIN GOFF
Kevin is a creative director and copywriter with over 20 years of experience. From social posts to the Super Bowl, his work has helped drive business success for clients while being recognized by the top award shows and publications. But at the end of the day, Kevin believes it’s all about the team. When good people work together, good things happen.
LAUREN BROWN
Lauren is one of our Strategic partners. She brings a human lens and cultural curiosity to businesses to build more connected, relevant brands. She has extensive experience advising businesses, from scrappy start-ups to iconic global brands, on brand, innovation, and marketing strategies. Lauren seamlessly blends creativity + analytical rigor to design custom research solutions that deliver transformative cultural and human insights.
Jenny Boyle Hoffman
Jenny is an Executive Producer who has led media production at FCB Global and DDB. She helps the Coterie and our Clients bring stellar creativity to fruition and connect to the right audience in the right way. A proud Illini alum and Chicagoan, she excels at facilitating creative vision and production excellence on budget and on time.
FOUNDER & CCO
EMMY-WINNING CREATIVE DIRECTOR & WRITER
DAN FIETSAM
Growing up in Belleville, Illinois (also home of Buddy Ebsen, Jimmy Connors, and Jeff Tweedy, if you know, or care, who they are) Dan migrated north up Highway 55 to Chicago with educational stops at Eastern Illinois and Northwestern University.
After graduating from the Medill School, he worked his way up the creative mountain, starting as a junior copywriter at Ogilvy, writing Sears radio spots, and eventually summitting as an executive creative director and chief creative officer at A-list agencies like BBDO, FCB, and Leo Burnett. The climb up, however, has not been free of some significant falls. More on that later.
Fundamentally a craftsman, Dan identifies as a creative, copywriter, and a creative director. He has won every advertising industry award that’s worth winning multiple times across all media categories, from over 10 Cannes Lions to an Emmy (the one award his mother actually recognizes). Subsequently, he has been honored as a judge for all the shows, including The One Show, Cannes, Clios, and Communication Arts. Additional highlights outside the awards included placing multiple Super Bowl spots (Bud Light and T-Mobile) in the USA TODAY AdMeter Top Ten three years in a row.
His past clients have included Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Wrigley, Quaker, Frito-Lay, Dell, T-Mobile, Yuengling Brewery, Fram Auto, Northwestern Medicine, Bayer Healthcare, Illinois Lottery, Dial-Henkel, Kmart, Sears, Minute Maid, Coca-Cola Japan, Kellogg’s, True Value, Valspar, and Boeing.
Collaborating with passionate clients who are confident, have a strong vision for their brand, and are equally driven to move their business forward motivates Dan more than anything else.
Dan is also committed to working with men in recovery and is certified as a mindfulness instructor (CMT-P, 500 hours) through Fleet Maull’s Prison Mindfulness Institute and the Engaged Mindfulness Institute and practices Soto Zen with the Black Mountain Zen Sangha in Scottsdale, Arizona.
To see the full catalog of creative work, please click here to visit www.danielfietsam.com
WTF DOES “LOTUS COTERIE” MEAN ANYWAY?
I have learned, through the direct experience of both peaks and valleys, that the downs - the difficulties, setbacks, challenges, and specifically the subsequent suffering - often is/are the compost for transformation. Out of the most difficult problems emerge beauty and wisdom. The perfect metaphor for this is the Lotus flower as it blooms in the midst of muck and mud, a truly unpleasant situation. A man much wiser than I - Thich Nhat Hanh - elaborates on this idea eloquently in his book, No Mud, No Lotus. Life’s most foreboding challenges are transformational if you open yourself to this powerful truth. To oversimplify, the obstacles in life’s path are the path.
Also, through many years of working in the advertising business, I have found that the world is huge, people are complex, and the velocity of life is increasing dramatically. Ergo, when working with people you vibe with, respect and trust are critically important. While great ideas often come from divergent and diverse points of view, backgrounds, and experiences, having a common ethos that connects the people you work with and for is essential to getting farther and faster. I have always been intrigued by the notion of a Coterie - a group of like-minded but idiosyncratic and highly individualistic peers working together to do something special.
And, perhaps most importantly, the URL was available.