He leaves behind his former partner Nick Bell, six years as executive creative director and the shop that produced the multi-award winning John West "Salmon" (see pg. 48) and McDonald's "99p" campaign to step into his new role as deputy chief creative officer and vice-chairman of Leo Burnett USA, working with chief creative officer/chairman Cheryl Berman, effective January 1, 2002.

"My job is to work in partnership with Cheryl and focus on creative output, to raise the bar on the creative product and the quality of the product, which is the thing we need to perfect. At the moment, the work contains pockets of excellence," says Tutssel. "Every agency has one or two accounts which furnish them with great work; the secret for me is to provide creative excellence for every brand across the portfolio. That's about putting the right people on the business and forming partnerships with the client and focusing on the right things. It's obviously difficult but we managed to achieve that in London."

Tutssel adds that Proctor & Gamble, a multinational client not always known for its commitment to creativity, has been swayed by this approach; he points to work from Leo Burnett Warsaw for Vizir washing powder as a case in point. Disney, the US Army, Heinz, Nintendo and Toys 'R' Us are just some of the brands Tutssel will work with when he steps into the 200-plus person creative department at Leo Chicago.

"At the moment I am working on a few specific products but my job is really to touch every aspect of the portfolio, to influence and direct and hopefully extract the best work from the team," he says. "It's about the department and every member will contribute to the success of the agency if we focus on products and quality of products and stand behind the work."

Aside from adjusting to the larger scale of things at the Chicago HQ, Tutssel praises US advertising craft, referencing the work of shops like Cliff Freeman & Partners as examples of solid stateside concept branding fused with entertainment.

"It's a reminder to everybody that we are in the entertainment business. We do not have the divine right to peoples attention. We intrude in their lives and if we intrude we have to entertain. With John West, the product truth was rooted in a strong truth about the brand and communicates this in a fresh, entertaining way that makes its point in a fresh, exciting and clever way," says Tutssel, going on to describe the making of "Salmon." "It communicated in a visual language and the filmic style, from Danny Kleinman, was everything. A lot of directors would have the camera in amongst the fight, make it action packed, but Danny let the idea breath. Less is more in this case. It's a wonderful piece of film, and a great commercial. Sales were phenomenal because of this commercial."

Similarly, Tutssel says the McDonald's campaign took the product truth regarding price and communicated this concept in an entertaining fashion.

"Jeff Stark did a wonderful job, and again, it's simplicity in execution, with locked off shots and using the 10 second medium for what it is. A lot of 10- or 20-second spots are cut downs and don't work. This one was written for 10 seconds," says Tutssel. "Stark is an adman, and he is one of the few, like Chris Palmer, Frank Budgen or Tony Kaye, that understand communications and advertising and bringing their skills to the party. Clearly they have an understanding of how it all works and are not just about creating a wonderful looking film."

While these two pieces of work were snapping up awards on the festival circuit, Tutssel was already in talks with Berman about the opportunity to make the move to Leo Burnett USA, which he describes as a bigger playing field with bigger prizes to be won.

"I'm really pumped up and the agency is excited about itself. We really are determined to be the best and it's something to shoot for. In the UK four or five years ago we were in the same position, producing average advertising," he reflects. "There were sparks of genius but by and large it was pretty average. But we set the simple goal to be the best, and those same people produced the work that took us to being the number one agency in London."

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