Screen Magazine: Vol. 28, Issue 11

Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 28, Issue 11 - Index

In a celebration that included hors d’oeuvres
and a five-pound Hershey bar, Team Detroit
officially moved into its new home. Completing
a process that began over two years ago, ad
agencies JWT, Y&R, Wunderman, Ogilvy and
groupm now happily reside under the same roof
(actually two roofs) in the 500 and 550 Town
Center buildings in Dearborn, Mich.
The two building campus, designed by
Gensler of Detroit, provides individualized
office suites for each agency as well as shared
meeting, presentation and exhibition spaces
and full-service print and broadcast production
facilities.
According to Director of Strategy &
Integration Don Topping, the facility wouldn’t
have been possible without the combined
resources of the Team Detroit venture.
“One of the things we were able to accomplish
in building this facility,” says Topping, “is
something that every agency I’ve found has a
problem with, which is creating enough scale
in our production area to consider it an actual,
real studio.”
Great pains were also taken, says Topping,
to find the balance between the retention of
agency individuality and the creation of common
space suitable to each agency’s needs.
The result is a building that flows seamlessly
from Ogilvy’s noise-reducing carpeted hallways
to JWT’s “summer camp” feel (complete with
wood paneling and breakout “bubbles” designed
to look like Airstream trailers). Each space
successfully retains a common design and
aesthetic without losing any of the agencies’
personalities.
The new facilities also cast a careful eye
toward the future, helping create what Team
Detroit president and CEO George Rogers
refers to as, “a 21st Century agency.”
Technological advancements include wireless
connectivity throughout both buildings, topof-the-line
video conferencing capabilities, a
fully equipped “black box” theater presentation
space and a VoIP phone system, which makes the
difficult relocation of employee work stations a
thing of the past.
“If somebody moves,” says Topping, “they
take their phone and plunk it down and it knows
that you’ve moved, it knows where you’ve
moved to and all of your stuff still works. We’re
trying to do a lot of stuff to make it a lot easier
on us.”
Along with the dedication of the new facilities,
the evening also included the announcement of
changes to Team Detroit’s leadership with the
promotion of Y&R’s Peter Rentschler and JWT’s
Toby Barlow as co-presidents of JWT Detroit.
Oglivy’s Jan Starr was also named as the chief
operating officer of Team Detroit.
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��
��