In Conversation with Cher Campbell

At age 18, Cher quit school to sell hand painted t-shirts to drunken tourists. As sales exceeded expectations, she diversified into several product lines extensions, most notably marketing bedazzled disposable lighters shoved into tiny cowboy boot keychains to drunken country music fans. One-to-one sales had their limitations however and she soon applied her street/agricultural fairs/mall kiosks hustle to an advertising career. Cher has worked all around the equator. Starting in Toronto, then moving on to Vancouver (but the view of sea planes led to dromomania), she then spent the next 7 years in Singapore, working on international campaigns for over 172 markets often being dispatched to Honk Kong, Bangkok, Auckland and Melbourne. Returning to Montreal due to dengue fever and homesickness she spearheaded the integration of Montreal’s NolinBBDO, a notable local design firm and a traditional advertising agency, while introducing the newly formed union’s digital offering. That’s when she started messing around with the idea of co-creation. She’s kind of obsessed with it now and it’s at the core of the way she works in her current role as john st.’s CCO. Along the way, cars, beers, packaged goods, travel services, phones and lots of other stuff was sold, awards were won, juries were judged but the hustle has never left her. Oh, and she did go back to school, because her mom said she needed a degree.