As a member of the GVSU Advertising Club  I was introduced early on in the year to a great event known as the Creative Crawl. Held typically each year Ad Club and Ad Fed, the Grand Rapids local professional advertising organization, host the event in which four GR agencies open their doors to students. Students of all different types of majors get the chance to see an insiders look into the creative professional world of Grand Rapids.

This years event started at Grand Rapids Brewing Company downtown, where participants were split up into four groups that would then walk to each individual agency and have a short amount of time to soak up the creative prowess of the agencies and then move on to the next. The stops on this year’s agenda were, Adtegrity, Grey Matter Group, PeopleDesign, and Experience GR. Each stop offered a different vibe and unique strategies on how and what they do to serve their clients.

As we walked along the streets of Grand Raids through some unfortunately bad weather we were greeted by posters of monsters designed for each agency to signify them as a stop on the tour. This process gave the event an interesting twist that you may not expect at a normal networking event.

IMG_20170406_155804.jpg
LaVigne, Evan (2017) Creative Crawl Pamphelt [JPEG] 
LaVigne, Evan (2017) Creative Crawl Trading Cards [JPEG]
LaVigne, Evan (2017) Creative Crawl Trading Cards [JPEG]

The event provided the map in the pamphlet as to let us know where to go and each stop included a trading card featuring the stops monster and information on the back indulge a description, contact information, and some of the firms previous clients. All of this certainly made for a unique networking experience.

I enjoyed all of the stops and learning some of the differences in work between the companies. While Grand Rapids is a market with many different companies who can specialize in certain types of business they all have employees who tend to wear multiple job “hats” in the industry. Which gives unique opportunities for employees to work on a multitude of fascinating projects.

IMG_20170406_154336
LaVigne, Evan (2017) Creative Crawl Selfie [JPEG]
I very much enjoyed the event and the opportunities that I had to network and learn more about the advertising and creative industry in Grand Rapids!

Thanks for Reading,

Evan LaVigne Twitter, LinkedIn