Vanessa Fortier on Storytelling in Advertising

"Work hard. Be yourself. Don’t take yourself too seriously!" ~ Vanessa Fortier

Vanessa Fortier has been a Creative Director with The Martin Agency, based in Richmond, Virginia, for the past five years and has overseen award-winning advertising campaigns for Benjamin Moore Paints and Walmart. Before coming to The Martin Agency, Vanessa worked for ten years at Saatchi & Saatchi NY as Creative Director, primarily on global accounts for Olay, Iams, and Eukanuba.

Vanessa landed her first job out of school at Leo Burnett Chicago, where she cut her teeth on McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, P&G, and Hallmark. As a wife and a mother of two girls, Vanessa keeps a variety of balls in the air as she juggles the mix of home and office priorities that many leaders do.

Vanessa believes that advertising is really about storytelling, even with the advent of new technologies and channels of communication. Big data is at its best when it informs an awesome strategy, she says, while the ability to execute an idea is as important as coming up with the idea.