Nuveen - Art Direction

Company: Nuveen Investments, Chicago, IL
Entered by: Fallon
Company Description: Nuveen Investments proudly manages over $100 Billion for individual investors, the financial advisors that serve them, as well as corporations, unions, endowments and foundations.
Nomination Category: Advertising/Design Craft & Technique
Nomination Sub Category: Best Art Direction

Nomination Title: Smarter Ways to Be Conservative: Mulligan

1. The date in 2006 on which this nominated ad was first run, aired, or otherwise made public:

May 2006

2. Briefly describe this entry’s communications objectives and how it met those objectives (up to 100 words):

Marketing Challenge:
By January 2003, the NASDAQ Index had lost approximately 70% of its values
since peaking in January 2000. In this same time frame, the S&P 500 Index had
dropped by almost 50%. This massive decline in the stock market prompted a
movement toward conservative investments.

As an asset management company that specialized in disciplined, conservative
investing, this was Nuveen Investments’ time to shine. However, many of the
investment companies that had previously fueled the performance craze of the
1990s had turned tail and started touting themselves as conservative asset
managers. These former mavericks were claiming Nuveen’s’ rightful position in
the marketplace and because of a lower profile and smaller media budget, Nuveen risked being left in the shadows.

Adding to Nuveen’s difficulties was the perception in the market that it was an
outdated municipal bond expert specializing in capital preservation. Financial
advisors were unaware of Nuveen’s leadership in separately managed accounts and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), two product offerings that placed Nuveen at the forefront of innovation in conservative investing.

Nuveen needed to defend its rightful position as an enlightened expert in
conservative investing and drive its business during this favorable market
cycle.

Campaign Objectives:
1. Drive Nuveen’s net income and total assets under management.
2. Lay a foundation for the successful launch of new exchange-traded funds
(ETFs). (SEC regulations prohibit explicit promotion of a new security, so the
job of advertising was to condition the target to the general benefits of
Nuveen ETFs.)

Target Audience:
Our target was a professional segment we called “Volatility Reducing” Financial
Advisors.

Through qualitative research, we learned that while investors saw the values of
their portfolios drop dramatically over the past few years, financial advisors
saw a similar increase in the volatility of their relationships with their
clients. As a result, many advisors were turning to disciplined, long-term
investments to help their clients achieve financial goals and, thereby, improve
their own client relationships.

With every downturn in the market, this group grows as more advisors were
humbled into realizing that picking the “hot stock” over time was
impossible. “Volatility-Reducing” Financial Advisors were no longer interested
in chasing performance at all costs and, in turn, putting their client
relationships at greater risk. They wanted to help their high-net-worth
investors (and themselves) reduce risks to achieve long-term financial goals.

Creative Strategy:
Our strategy was defined by a curious contradiction: “conservative ingenuity.”

Risk reduction is the foundation of Nuveen’s conservative investment philosophy, and always has been. However, throughout Nuveen’s hundred-year-plus history, the company has continuously pioneered new approaches to managing risk and constructing quality portfolios across all market cycles. The ETFs and separately managed accounts that we needed to support were contemporary examples of “conservative ingenuity” at work.

It was Nuveen’s legacy that would allow us to differentiate from our
opportunistic competitors, for whom conservatism was a flavor of the month. The
campaign needed to communicate Nuveen’s unwavering commitment to quality
conservative investment management delivered with ingenuity. In other words:
Nuveen is the smarter way to invest conservatively.

3. List the appropriate creative and production credits for this entry: Advertising Agency/City: Client: Art Director: Cinematographer: Creative Director: Designer: Director: Illustrator/City: Music Producer/City: Photographer/City: Printer/City: Producer: Production Company/City: Programmer: Writer: Web Development Firm/City:

Fallon / Minneapolis
Nuveen Investments
DJ Pierce, Art Director
Bruce Bildsten, Executive Creative Director
Mike Gibbs, Group Creative Director
Tom Rosen, Copywriter