Part Buddha, part prize-fighter (or so he’s been described), Hutson hails from Cleveland, the city of lousy weather, bad jokes, and until Lebron brought the NBA trophy back, tragic sports stories. As such, developing a thick skin came with the territory, which coincidentally comes in handy as a creative in advertising.
Graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was a proud member of the Badger Marching Band, Hutson set his sights on the agencies of Chicago. He landed at JWT, working on all the brands he grew up eating and learning from some of the best minds in the business. From there it was onto stops in Houston, Vegas, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, then back to Chicago (a few times).
He’s been called a natural leader, a creative rock, and the sort of creative director for whom we’d all like to work. He’s put a regional shop on the national map, inspired a creative department that lost its mojo, changed the way an entire agency operates, and has been credited with not just building brands, but helping to build companies brands want to work with.
His work tells seamless brand stories that engage across all modern media and has been recognized by the One Show, Effies, FWA, CA, Marcom, Hermès, and Addys including four “Best-of-Show” as well as being talked about by Whoopie on “The View”, Bill O’Reilly on Fox News and featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, and the Huffington Post.
When he’s not creating boundary pushing, brand-defining work, Hutson can be found working on his manuscript (cliché, he knows), reading, traveling helping his sixteen-year-old daughter navigate the trials of high school, or on the yoga mat, a practice he started over twenty years ago. An eternal optimist, he believes every year is the year his beloved Cleveland Browns will return to glory.
