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Jennifer Sutton: Bringing Passion and Energy to the Table

Jennifer Sutton, CEO & Founder, BRIGHT+CO Marketing, has approached every position she’s held as if she were the CEO of that role or department. Now as a successful CEO, she attributes her success and her leadership style to those who’ve led her throughout her career. She has learned everything from her predecessors and tried to bring the positive qualities from them into herself – creating a style that is uniquely her own. Jennifer tries her best to inspire her team by bringing passion and energy to the table, with the goal being for the team to think through problems from different angles and take solutions to the clients that are thorough and based on strategy; they should not be just cool ideas, but should also be compatible with the clients’ brand strategy and growth goals.
Jennifer as a Leader
Jennifer Sutton founded BRIGHT+CO Marketing in 2013. She brings a diverse background that spans over 25 years of agency experience, growing up in the agency world in the media, research and account planning departments. Her experience covers brand management, marketing and research, integrated media planning and digital architecture in emerging and developed markets, across packaged goods and durables, in both manufacturing and retail organizations for some of the biggest brands in the US.
As a CEO, Jennifer is responsible for the infrastructure, program offerings and operations, while also bringing strategic leadership to the team and clients. She challenges her team to bring their expertise and strength in their discipline to solve a client’s problem. By creating a collaborative environment, the team is able to bring higher level thinking and more thorough solutions to the table.
Partner in the Journey
Andy Mendelsohn, BRIGHT+CO’s strategic and creative partner, who brings 35 years of branding experience across dozens of categories. He spent the majority of his career in major New York agencies, building and flourishing brands including Heineken, Amstel Light, Panasonic, Denny’s, Verizon, Lexmark and Tylenol. And now leads the agency and the creative team to deliver the ideas, a high quality creative product that is based on a strategic foundation. As the leaders of the company, both Jennifer and Andy share a common belief—to keep the clients’ business in mind.
They were bitten by the entrepreneurial bug to build an agency with a vision of helping organizations, big or small, develop strategies that place the customer at its core. “We have built a network of the best and brightest people in every discipline so that our clients can enjoy some of the most strategic and creative minds at great value relative to more traditional firms. Our team is vetted carefully, as we want the best people across each marketing discipline,” said Jennifer.
BRIGHT+CO: A Smart Marketing Team
BRIGHT+CO Marketing is a full-service marketing company that understands how to build a brand across the 7 P’s of marketing (Product, Prices, Promotion, Place, Packaging, Positioning, People) – and then to build an integrated communications program that generates better results. The leaders of BRIGHT+CO held big jobs for decades at large advertising and marketing agencies, experiencing the market and marketing agencies, they have created an agency model that is based on the best principles across the different marketing disciplines. The founding focus of BRIGHT+CO is to offer a one stop solution without having to sacrifice the brand strategy or integration of the media mix.
They are now working on expanding their custom social management and listening dashboard by incorporating a voice of the customer program that ties with online reviews.
Bringing the Best People Together
As with all marketing and advertising firms, BRIGHT+CO is the culmination of the talents of its contributing members. They build a network of the best and brightest people in every discipline so that their clients can enjoy some of the most strategic and creative minds at a great value relative to more traditional firms. Their team is vetted carefully, as Jennifer wants the best people in each marketing discipline (from digital, PR, web, copywriting, art direction, photography, etc.) so that they could bring big agency thinking and creative quality at more affordable prices.
Bringing the best and brightest of both the art and science of marketing together under one unified, collaborative team that all understand the meaning of client advocacy, and being an advocate for the client is what motivates Jennifer. Jennifer works with her team members to enhance their skills by focusing on their strengths and passion. She believes that when people can focus on the things they like to do and has passion for, their productivity and work satisfaction increases. This is true for the most seasoned professional as well as the newcomer wanting to earn their stripes. And, then most importantly, Jennifer wants them to understand and fight for the client across the various marketing touch points.
A Company Which Cares About Clients
Jennifer and Andy deliver contemporary, agile, cost-efficient and technologically savvy products to their clients. They make brands work harder, smarter and tougher. They develop a relationship with the customer that turns the customer into their ultimate ambassador, their advocate, their champion whose passion for what they sell makes them impervious to a competitor’s lower price or a temporary deal.
Jennifer’s company BRIGHT+CO Marketing offers clients more modern thinking for the money. This agency is where art and science come together seamlessly. They will be the most innovative, the most nimble, the most responsive and the most idea-generative. This new model is where other agencies will be heading eventually.
Future Strategy in Jennifer’s Words
BRIGHT+CO is planning to be one of the largest agencies in the southeast within the next 3-5 years. They are currently located in Greenville, SC and are not planning to relocate. “Greenville is a contemporary city that is growing and thriving that appreciates and supports entrepreneurs and small businesses,” says Jennifer.
“Buying habits change, market conditions change and media consumption habits change. It is our job to understand that changing landscape. Our model allows us the agility and flexibility in bringing the best thinking to the industry. We must continuously have a keen eye for talent identification, while staying on top of the media tools and software and fluctuations of market conditions to bring the best thinking together to benefit the client,” adds Jennifer referring to the future strategy of the company.