Villager’s Two-Man Ad Firm a ‘Small Agency of the Year’

When it came time for advertising-business magazine Advertising Age to hand out its annual “Small Agency of the Year” recognitions, the Distillery Project had little trouble making weight in the under-10-employees class. They’re eight short of the max.

The agency’s only full-timers are co-founders John Condon of Western Springs and Per Jacobson of Evanston, and their creative efforts for clients like McDonalds, AthletiCo and Delta have earned the duo the Silver award in that category in Ad Age’s 2012 SAotY awards.

John and Per, longtime veterans and creative partners at advertising megafirm Leo Burnett, split off in 2009 to found the Distillery Project (formerly called Work-Chicago) with the goal of streamlining the work of an agency down to its essentials.

“When you’re at a really big agency… there are inherent layers, some amount of bureaucracy and management and process,” Condon said. “What we try to do—and this is where the name of the company comes from—is distill out anything that’s extraneous or unnecessary to getting to really good work.”

The Distillery Project creates ad campaigns in multiple mediums, from classic print and TV ads to thoroughly unique stunts. For instance, for McDonald’s, the duo once created an enormous working sundial to showcase breakfast products, and another time embedded the words “FRESH SALADS” out of actual lettuce growing sideways on a billboard.

Another memorable campaign that Distillery ran was an AIDS-awareness and AIDS-fighting fundraising TV ad for the United Nations Foundation, spotlighting that “AIDS has created more than 14 million orphans worldwide.”

“It is really important to help companies sell their products and brands,” Condon said, adding that businesses and peoples’ livelihoods depend on it. “But when you have a chance to work on something that actually gets right at issues that are dealing with people whose very lives are at risk and you can try to do something to make that situation better—that has always been a project that stood out to me.”

Condon is a 16-year resident of the Field Park neighborhood of Western Springs, along with his wife Catherine. They have two daughters, one in high school and one in college.