News

Adweek: With a new advisory council, VCU Brandcenter charts its future course

Executive Director Vann Graves and the VCU Brandcenter announced a new advisory council designed to address the new order of brands, creativity and marketing.

The Brandcenter's Director’s Council includes several influential leaders in the more traditional agency and brand space—Omnicom, Universal McCann and MetLife are represented—but also tips its hat to technology, media and entrepreneurship. Amber Guild, for example, is the president of T Brand Studios at the New York Times and Howard Jordan, Jr. (a Brandcenter alum and Richmond native) is a story editor and TV writer at Netflix.

Director Vann Graves & Adweek celebrate 15 classic campaigns by black creatives

“We have these same conversations [around diversity in advertising], and there seems to be no traction, but those conversations are easy to sell,” said VCU Brandcenter executive director and former JWT Atlanta CCO Vann Graves. “Whereas where there are successes, they’re rarely celebrated.”

Graves and other industry pros discuss iconic work like McCann Worldgroup's "Hilltop" for Coca-cola (1971) and others that helped shape our industry - and were co-created by people of color.

VCU Brandcenter director Vann Graves has a 'reputation as a strong, thoughtful and effective leader'

“A lot of schools will only teach the process of how to make something pretty or how to only execute something, while at the Brandcenter we first step back and ask, ‘what is the concept?’” Graves explained. “How does it solve a business problem, and how do you approach that?"

Learn more about our Executive Director Vann Graves, his advertising career, and his journey back to Richmond to lead the VCU Brandcenter.

Droga5 NY promotes Brandcenter alums Casey Rand and Karen Land Short to ECDs

Since joining Droga5 in 2013 and 2012 respectively, Casey Rand and Karen Land Short have helped lead the charge for some of the agency’s most defining work, including Under Armour’s ‘I Will What I Want' and the Clinton Foundation’s ‘Not There’, as well as multiple campaigns for Chase, Dixie, Prudential, Newcastle, YMCA, Covergirl and more.