First and foremost,
we make every idea count.

It’s in our genetic code. As people. As teams. As a company. We’re a 70+ year-old agency with the soul of a startup. We believe that you can’t innovate if you don’t collaborate. But most of all, we have passionate people who take great pride in solving problems and creating superb results for our clients.

Clients

  • Aveda
  • Bikes Belong Coalition
  • Caribou Coffee Company
  • Cenex
  • CHS, Inc.
  • Discovery Communications
  • DuPont
  • Erbert & Gerbert’s
  • ESPN
  • Explore Minnesota Tourism
  • Free Arts Minnesota
  • General Mills
  • IBA
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Kiehl's
  • Koala Ranch Wine
  • Land O'Lakes
  • Nestlé Purina
  • New Holland
  • Novartis
  • Old Navy
  • PGA of America
  • Propane Education & Research Council
  • Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation
  • Red Wing Shoe Company
  • Regis Corporation
  • Taubman Centers
  • The North American Olive Oil Association
  • Winfield Solutions
  • Wolfgang Puck
  • Yahoo!
  • Zimride

Leadership


Christine Fruechte
President & CEO

Industry leader, nationally recognized visionary and daughter of a psychic entertainer (seriously.) Christine knows that the best way to predict the future is to create it.

Since joining C+M in 2004, she has spearheaded the agency’s tremendous growth and transformation by adding great diversity to our client roster and evolving C+M into a fully integrated, digitally driven agency. And while agency billings have increased year-over-year for the last five years, more important, the agency's clients are achieving record-setting results.

Prior to C+M, Christine worked for Campbell Mithun, DDB Honolulu (where she was named the first female and the youngest director of client services in the agency’s history) and Preston Kelly in Minneapolis. She developed integrated campaigns for clients, including Aveda, Caribou Coffee, Coca-Cola, Domino's, General Mills, ESPN, Johnson & Johnson, Johnsonville, Land O'Lakes, McDonald's, Nestlé Purina, Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation, Revlon, Starwood Hotels, Taco John's, and Yahoo! among others.

Christine has earned numerous awards: Effies, Webbys and even an Emmy Award. In 2010 she was recognized in the Ad Age annual “Women to Watch” report, which honors the most innovative women in the world of advertising, marketing and media. In addition, Twin Cities Business named Christine among the 200 Minnesotans you should know. In 2002, The Business Journal named her one of the “Top 40 Under 40” and, in 2005, a “Woman to Watch.”

Basically, what we’re saying is you don’t have to be a psychic to know when Christine is around, the future looks bright.

Mike Caguin
Executive Creative Director

Mike not only has the responsibility of overseeing C+M’s creative output, he also has a difficult last name to pronounce (Kah-ghin.) So, to make life easier he surrounds himself with gifted, quick-witted thinkers. It’s this creative talent that has allowed C+M to be consistently recognized both nationally and internationally in the industry’s most revered award shows including The Webbys, The One Show, Communication Arts, Cannes, Graphis, AIGA and the Effies.

Prior to becoming C+M’s creative leader, Mike made things happen at shops large and small and from coast to coast, including Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners and TBWA\Chiat\Day. His client experience includes Allianz Life, BMW MINI, Detroit Pistons, Infiniti, Inter-Continental Hotels, Minnesota Wild, Nissan and Sun Microsystems. Oh, and let’s not forget every account at C+M.

But just in case that’s not enough accomplishment for you, last fall he took on a full-distance Ironman triathlon. Just to see if he could do it. Shocker. He did it.

Phil Johnson
Chief Operating Officer

Innovation, strategic thinking and top-notch execution. That’s Phil’s (not-so-secret) secret to ensure each of our clients’ success.

During his tenure at C+M, Phil has supervised the marketing mobilization of a variety of clients, including CHS, Land O’Lakes, New Holland, Pfizer, 3M, Explore Minnesota Tourism and Time Warner Cable.

In 2007, the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) awarded Phil the Marketer of the Year Award. This award is NAMA's most prestigious honor and serves to recognize Phil’s outstanding achievements throughout his career and his twenty-year history with C+M, as he’s helped the agency exceed the demands of all of our clients.

Phil is a nationally recognized leader for the Boy Scouts of America and the 2007 Outstanding Advertising Alumnus of the University of Nebraska.

David Denham
Director of Strategic Initiatives

David drives strategy for the acquisition of new clients, growing our existing clients’ business and driving our agency forward. Prior to joining Colle+McVoy, David worked in Manhattan for Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve as a principal consultant, developing culturally relevant brand strategies and go-to-market solutions for clients such as Colgate-Palmolive, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Miller Brewing Company, PepsiCo and RadioShack. Before BrainReserve, David spent seven years with Sapient (now SapientNitro) in Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Most recently, David established an urban garden in Minneapolis working with inner-city youth to grow and harvest vegetables during our short Minnesota summers and making them available to the local community. Up next for David? Well, being an Arizona native, we’re hoping he works on lengthening our short Minnesota summers.

Tom Lindell
Managing Director, Exponent Public Relations

Tom manages Exponent, C+M’s award-winning PR shop, while collaborating with the agency to ensure that our clients receive the highest level of public/consumer awareness, credibility and buzz. Under Tom’s leadership, Exponent has gained many new PR clients, including General Mills, Muir Glen and Medtronic.

Over the course of his career, Tom has helped grow variety of high-profile brands such as Nestlé Purina, Maytag Appliances, Novartis, General Mills, 7-Eleven and American Standard.

Tom has helped Exponent earn a reputation for creativity while leading the PR shop to win numerous PRSA Anvil Awards and SABRE Awards. In 2010, Exponent received the prestigious Silver Anvil award for its 2009 Hamburger Helper campaign, Show Your Helping Hand.

For family vacations, Tom believes that the most magical place to be isn’t in Orlando, Florida, but rather spending his time off right here in Minnesota.

Ed Bennett
Director of Design

For the last ten years, Ed has transformed the design department at C+M into one of the most prominent in the country. He’s helped bring about this change by living by two simple rules: Never run out of ideas and have an amazing smile. Check, and check.

Ed has an amazing breadth and depth of design expertise stemming from his experience with brands such as Nikon, ESPN, Jim Beam, Red Wing Shoes, Field & Stream, Lee Jeans, Johnson & Johnson and Caribou Coffee.

Ed and his unbelievably talented stable of designers have received national and international design recognition for their work, including awards from AIGA, One Show, D&AD and the Effies, as well coverage by esteemed international publications like Graphis, Print, Creativity and Communication Arts.

Around here, Ed’s known as the Grey Squirrel, the Silver Fox or even Mr. Terrific Fantastic. He has a beautiful wife, three equally beautiful daughters and a stunningly breathtaking smile.

Eric Husband
Group Creative Director

Eric started out on the account side of the advertising world. But thankfully, (for us, and our clients) he quickly discovered the creative side of the hallway was where his true talents lie.

Since making the jump, Eric has drawn upon his well-rounded experience to create award-winning campaigns for brands such as BMW/MINI, Aveda, Caribou Coffee, Sun Microsystems, Nestlé Purina and August Schell Brewing Co. Along the way, picking up every color of Effie award available.

His work, crossing all platforms from digital to outdoor, has not only been honored by virtually every award show in the industry, it’s also landed on the homepages of Mashable and FastCompany, appeared on ESPN’s Play of the Day and been enthusiastically discussed on the Jimmy Fallon Show. Oh, and let’s not forget his work for MINI, which was named the year’s best print campaign by the Magazine Publishers of America’s Kelly Awards in 2007.

Eric has three girls (two of them identical twins) and two very large adopted mutts. He’s been a snowboarder since ‘87, owns a Vespa scooter from ’66 and hasn’t eaten butter since ’74 (due to a butter-related accident as a toddler). Don’t ask.

Stacy Janicki
Director of Account Management

Stacy has the job of managing the talent and resources (emphasis on talent) of the Account Management group. Her experience across a breadth of brands and business categories, along with her master’s work in Counseling Psychology, have prepared her well for this role. While at Colle+McVoy, Stacy has also provided strategic leadership on Caribou Coffee, Take Me Fishing and ESPN.

Prior to Colle+McVoy, Stacy worked at Campbell Mithun and Martin Williams, for clients including General Mills, Anheuser-Busch, Microsoft, 3M, Minnesota Public Radio, Gold’n Plump Chicken, Bruegger’s Bagels and Verizon Cellular.

At home, Stacy is the co-director of Domicile Management, overseeing 3 children and job-sharing with one very supportive husband. In her spare time, Stacy sneaks in the occasional marathon, coaches her kids’ basketball and soccer teams, and indulges in reality TV. A former prep All-American and Minnesota’s 1992 Ms. Basketball, Stacy played hoops for the University of Notre Dame, but now limits her competition to cutthroat games of H-O-R-S-E.

Craig Pladson
Director of Interactive Strategy

There’s a whole lot of interconnectivity happening out there, and Craig is bound and determined to leverage every last bit of it for our clients.

Craig’s unique blend of agency and corporate interactive marketing experience in numerous industries gives him the uncanny ability of linking consumers and brands together through technology.

His big brains and boundless energy have helped guide the interactive strategic thinking on brands such as Land O'Lakes, Yahoo!, Kiehl's, Nestlé Purina, BestBuy.com and Fanball.com. On top of that, we’ve never met anyone who is better at getting a complex point across in 140 characters or fewer.

For rest and relaxation, Craig likes to curl up with a nice, juicy Twitter feed. He also enjoys mountain biking, camping and pretty much anything outdoors with his wife and their dog Fletcher (@fletchmasterp).