New career starts in September as chair of ad dept at Savannah College of Art & Design.

Just a bit of happy news in the Sullivan (and Whipple) household. Announced today the beginning of my second career. I’ve accepted an offer from the Savannah College of Art and Design to be the chair of their advertising department, startin’ this September.

I am crazy thrilled about it. For years, my favorite part of this business has been mentoring kids, teaching, lecturing, all that professor-y stuff – now I just get to do it full time.

SCAD isn’t new to me. I’ve been on their advisory board since 2009 and have spoken there a couple of times. Their Atlanta campus is extremely cool (they bought the HQ of some huge tech company that went bust right after they built this huge incredible building). But it’s the Savannah campus I’ll be calling home. I’ll be moving there with my wife and two boys (and two yellow labs) sometime this summer.

In the meantime, GSDM continues to employ me as I hand off duties to a really cool new person joining the agency in May (don’t think they’ve officially announced who it is yet). Plus I will be helping to recruit junior teams for a few open posts we have.

Also keeping me busy is the launch of my second book, a memoir titled Thirty Rooms to Hide In. Best description I can come up with is it’s sort of like The Shining, if it were a comedy. I’ll have a ThirtyRoomsToHideIn.com website up in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I hope you like it.
More later.

23 Comments

  1. Wow. Congratulations, Luke! As a graduate, this is terrific news for the department and for its students. Sigh. If only I was still a student.

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  2. Congratulations, Luke. Savannah’s got so many personalities. I imagine there’s always room for one more.

    The very best of luck, and here’s to new adventures (NOG, of course).

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  3. Wow Luke, I’m shocked and not shocked all at the same time. There’s no question that you’re a strong teacher or that you’ve always been a serious student of the industry. They’ll be lucky to have you and I wish you all the best.

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  4. Let me reiterate and amplify Diane’s first two words: WOW LUKE!!! Two years ago my wife and I walked past their building in gorgeous Savannah (the day before the big St Paddy’s parade) and I thought: now THIS would be the life! I’m very happy for you, and for the lucky kids who will benefit from your talents. I hope we get to visit you there!

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  5. Congrats. The department is so lucky to have you. I’m sad that I am graduating in June. As a copywriter, I know how excited everyone is to you! Cheers and good luck!

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  6. Long time admirer of your work, first time responder. Congrats! But to be honest, it’s less about your cool career move and more about the fact that you’ll be in my neck of the woods, since I’m from Chattanooga. The first thing I did when I came to this tiny little agency was order copies of Hey Whipple for all the creative staff (and a few of the AE’s). I still refer to it often. So thanks! And hopefully a field trip to Savannah will be in order this fall. I do love Paula Deen’s cookin’!

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  7. Congrats! I know you will love it at SCAD. I saw the article highlighting your news and had to look. Your book was required reading for my copy-writing class at SCAD-Atlanta way back in 2005.

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  8. Good for you, Luke.

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  9. SCAD doesn’t know how lucky they have it. I’m a bit jealous that you didn’t come to teach at UT—Austin, we all love you here. But best wishes. You’ll be missed by the entire Austin Ad community.

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    • I am overcome with all the outpouring of niceness to come from so many friends and readers about my next chapter at SCAD. Thank you so much, everyone, including you Jonathan.

      Reply
  10. SCAD goes from Good to Great.
    Cheers,
    Warren

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  11. I’m an alum of SCAD and this is great news! I wish I was 15 years younger right now… Good luck Luke. Savannah is a great place.

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    • How nice of you Jose. Thanks so much.

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  12. Congratulations Luke! We are glad to have you here in Savannah. I REALLY wish I was still in the program..

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    • I am crazy thrilled to be here.

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  13. Congrats! That’s awesome news. SCAD’s lucky to have you. Good luck with everything.

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  14. You’ll love Savannah, GA – Congratulations Luke. Don’t be surprised if I stop in to say Hi one day. You’re no longer too far from Raleigh, NC.

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  15. That sounds awesome. Congratulations. You taught me a lot in our brief stint of working together. SCAD is lucky to have you.

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  16. It’s fair to say that in the last 10 years, you’ve had a profound impact of the vast majority of advertising students around the world. These kids will be very lucky to have you.
    Congratulations from Ireland Luke.

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    • How nice of you to write all the way from Ireland to send your felicitations. Much appreciated.

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  17. Congratulations, Luke! I am the president of the SCAD-Atlanta AdClub and on behalf of the club, I want to welcome you to SCAD! Hopefully you’ll visit us in Atlanta. We are very excited about having you in the ad department!

    Reply
    • Will be visiting Atlanta campus a lot I imagine. Thank u for the warm welcome.

      Reply

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Luke Sullivan

Author, speaker, and ad veteran available to recharge, reinvigorate, and refocus marketing, advertising, and branding firms.

I give a hugely energetic series of presentations on innovation, creativity, branding, and marketing. I spent 32 years in the trenches of advertising (at agencies like Martin, GSD&M, and Fallon) and I’ve put everything I learned into my book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This. But for me nothing beats taking the message out and speaking to living breathing audiences at clients, agencies, and conferences. You can book me on the button below.

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