Bob Fields, President and founder, CommCreative
June 8, 2015
Shop Talk
Q&A with Bob Fields, President and Founder, CommCreative
PHOTO/MATT VOLPINI
TITLE: President and Founder, CommCreative, Framingham
RESIDENCE: Southborough
EDUCATION: Brookline High School; attended Boston University
By Rick Saia
In the 1980s, after several years in marketing roles for top consumer brands such as Gillette, Braun and then Leominster-based Foster Grant, Bob Fields went into business for himself and formed CommCreative, a “unified” marketing agency where clients can get help with branding, direct and print advertising, digital marketing and social media, and public relations. CommCreative's clients include Fortune 500 companies and regional brands in health care, finance, high tech and service industries.
You've worked in marketing positions for some household names in the consumer goods sector. How did that experience help pave the way for creating your own company?
When I wound up in Leominster, I found that the agencies out of Boston and New York really didn't want to service me well. Our budgets were much smaller than they were at Gillette and Braun. But I still had a job to do. (Yet) I couldn't find well-qualified agencies in the suburbs that could really do a good job.
What are some big-name brands that market effectively today?
Obviously, Apple does a wonderful job. But I think (Tesla is) doing a great job. (CEO Elon Musk is) brilliant. He has established a reputation and a brand reputation for quality and “American made.”
CommCreative is all about a three-pronged approach to boosting brand: social media, public relations and digital advertising. How well has business grasped the importance of all of that?
Our business has doubled over the last two years. We (have been a) significant force in B2B marketing over the last five or six years, but the unified marketing aspect — encompassing traditional print, outdoor, digital, social media, public relations — in the business-to-business space has fueled growth here that I never anticipated, to the point where now we've outgrown the two buildings that we own here.
What's most important in managing professionals in such a creative environment?
To let them know that they always have the opportunity to grow intellectually, that we agree on a lifetime journey of learning, so we pay for any workshops, seminars they want to go to. They will not grow and continue to be viable in their fields if they just stay here in the office and don't continue to learn and grow.
What one or two things are high on your list of priorities when you're looking to hire someone?
They have to be self-thinkers, they have to be innovators. I tell people we empower them to make decisions. What we don't respect here is indecision. Don't be looking to somebody else if you're out there with a client to get a consensus on a decision. You have to have the confidence as a marketer to be able to make a decision when you're sitting in front of a client.
How do you help a company that has been getting bad or mediocre reviews on websites like Yelp?
That is a continuing challenge for anybody, and it's really based on how many good reviews you can have and, hopefully, (they're) driving down the bad reviews. You can't take the bad reviews away. There are a lot of disreputable companies out there that offer reputation management. The challenge is to encourage people to give positive reviews, but you cannot write positive reviews or hire people to do positive reviews because that's not ethical.
It seems companies like Yelp are getting better at vetting and discovering that there are companies now that have been paid to write positive reviews.
You help college students polish their career skills. We just sent a new group of college graduates into the working world. If there's one thing they can improve on, what is it?
Staying off their mobile devices during client meetings and during internal meetings. It's an evolving problem. We've had to really initiate a very strong policy within the company ... You have to understand the emotions of the client when you're (being) creative.
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