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The Mill and Creative Social Welcome Characters!

Friday, October 05, 2012

This week The Mill's creature and character reel was in the spotlight at Creative Social's "We Welcome Characters" event organized by The Mill's Orlaith Finucane and hosted at LBi's NY office. The discussion focused on the concept of "Characters" and the significance of these in building brands and agencies that thrive.

Every agency, client business and other type of community in our lives is comprised of characters-different people with a diverse mix of personality traits and points of view. Some characters inspire and galvanize those around them to achieve greater things. Others leave a legacy that will last well beyond their lifetime. Ultimately, it's our character that defines who we are, our relationships with other people and the world around us.

Four industry speakers interpreted this broad topic of characters in their own ways and entertained the audience with their individual stories, strategies and anecdotes. The evening was enhanced by LBi's beautiful space and free flowing beer from Brooklyn Brewery.

Fernanda 'Fefa' Romano, Chief Creative Officer at Naked Brasil, focused on social media and argued that we are all characters in the identities we create through social networks and how individual brands do this as well. She noted that even Bart Simpson has his own twitter feed and discussed how fictional characters also play an important role in the building of brands and businesses.

Fredrik Carlstrӧm, Chief Executive Officer at C&CO suggested agencies and brands are like characters themselves and that in order to succeed in the future each has to constantly reassess their 'characters' and company structures to stay relevant and modern.

The evening wrapped up with a special appearance from Girlapproved and SheSays, organizations that have created 'The Mascot Project'-a game-changing initiative that looks at characters in a different way, aiming to define the visualization of female leadership through the creation of female mascots across US school systems.

Watch this space for more Creative Social and Mill sponsored events in the future!