lee ehmke
february 2010 // interviewed by drew wood
Lee Ehmke is director and CEO of the
Minnesota zoo and president of the
Minnesota zoo Foundation.
Barrie, D’Rozario, Murphy
January 2010 // Interviewed by David Gee
Finding your passion: it was clear when i was
eight or 10 that i was going to be a zoologist,
but at some point i kind of hit the reality of,
“i’m not going to be a very good scientist
because my math grades stink.”
Changing your path: i was working for the Sierra club legal defense fund and the california coastal commission. i enjoyed the results
of what we accomplished, but it was mostly
about stopping bad things from happening as
opposed to creating new positives.
Barrie, D’Rozario, Murphy is a Minneapolis- based advertising agency.
« Stuart
d’rozario, bob
barrie and
david Murphy
Thinking differently: Someone designed zoos
all throughout history and it typically would
be architects, but the results were buildings—
people-oriented things—designed to house
animals. whereas when landscape architects
started approaching zoos, it was like, “well,
what’s a landscape with animals?” that’s a
very different way of thinking about it.
The complexity of being mission-driven:
Getting a family to go to the zoo is different than
[saving] trumpeter swans, but the way to save
trumpeter swans is to get families to come to
the zoo. So we have to be attractive to our audience, we have to expand our audience and
we have to sustain our audience. that allows
us to do more mission-driven things.
The science of finding a partner:
We needed a third partner on the
strategy side and I told Bob [Bar-rie] I had once met this cool ad
guy David Murphy several years
earlier. So I looked him up and
found he had moved on and was
running the Saatchi & Saatchi LA
office. We both said, “Good luck
with that.” I called David anyway
and said, “Do you remember me?
How would you like to leave your
job, run away and join the circus?”
–Stuart D’Rozario, co-president
and executive creative director
independence leads to collaboration: We can collaborate with
virtually anyone in the world
without undue influence to use a
certain company or person simply
because they’re “in the network.”
Whether we are the lead brand
agency or a supplemental support
agency, we collaborate with others.
A lot of agencies are real competitive and constantly jostle for
position, but we found our work
is better and the mood is better if
we approach it as “we’re all in this
together.” –Bob Barrie
ing on one client’s business. The
team we have working on United
[Airlines]’ account is no different
than the number of people who
would be working on it at a bigger
agency. One thing that is different, however, is that bureaucracy
and compartmental silos do not
encumber our team. We have the
same brain power, the same resources, but they are more directly
applied to the client and their jobs.
–David Murphy
Awards: The biggest thing about
awards is that clients are hiring
us to make them more successful and it gives them confidence
that we are successful ourselves.
–Stuart D’Rozario
The business of bootstrapping: instead of
spending $100,000 to bring in consultants
to figure out how to build a meerkat exhibit, i
sat down with the staff and said, “we can do
this.” i found out that we have some talented
people who can build little environments in a
much more cost-effective way.
A world with too many ad agencies: The world doesn’t need
another ad agency, but when you
have people who understand the
role of culture, the right culture,
the right people will be attracted to
that and the right clients will value
that. –David Murphy, co-president,
executive director/brand innovation
Damn the creative department:
My pet peeve has long been the
creative department. Everyone
thinks it’s hallowed ground. The
one thing we will never have at
BDM is a creative department.
–Stuart D’Rozario
Teams, not agencies: It really
comes down to small teams. There
are never 200 or 300 people work-
Culture is king: One thing I’ve
learned is that it really is all about
the culture. Everyone has the
same processes, but it’s the culture that makes things happen.
–David Murphy
lee eMkee photo by tate carlSon; barrie, d’roZario, Murphy photo and Monica
little photo by MarShall franklin lonG
