Mark A. Weninger
Bringing his clients nearly twenty years of award-winning expertise, Mark has built his career by combining the conceptual strengths of brand advertising with the behavior changing power of one-to-one experiences. The result is an internationally recognized portfolio of impressive business results that spans above- and below-the-line, in established and emerging media alike, for consumer and business audiences.
Today, Mark serves as Chief Creative Officer & Agency Group Leader for Merkle, the nation’s largest privately-held agency, overseeing the full spectrum of the shop’s communications consulting, experience design, and creative strategy & development. With dynamic client engagements spanning insurance, financial services, health sciences, travel & entertainment and retail categories, Mark & his team have undertaken a complete reengineering of Merkle’s communications and customer experience disciplines, harnessing the agency’s unrivalled strengths in analytics, technology, customer strategy & digital
media to sharpen the creative and experience contributions to their clients’ marketing mix.
Before joining Merkle, Mark was Managing Partner and Chief Creative Officer at OgilvyOne Worldwide, and prior to Ogilvy, was Executive Creative Director at Wunderman/Young & Rubicam, New York, and has held the same position with worldwide responsibilities at Carlson Worldwide, the world’s largest marketing services agency.
Earning top honours for his clients and his agency teammates in the most prestigious communications and marketing award shows, Mark is a frequent speaker at national gatherings, and regularly serves as judge for a variety of international advertising and marketing competitions. He has been profiled by Advertising Age, and has been named among the Outstanding Practitioners of The Creative Arts.
To date, Mark’s award-filled portfolio showcases results-driving work across the full range of marketing channels for dominant brands including Ameriprise Financial, British Airways, Federal Express, General Electric, NBC, American Express, Unilever, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, IBM, Hallmark, AstraZeneca, AOL, U.S. Bancorp, and other category leaders.
A native of Cleveland, Ohio and avid Formula Atlantic driver, Mark earned his Bachelor of Arts with summa cum laude honors from Borromeo College and his Master of Arts from St. Mary on-the-Lake. He makes his home in the western lakes area of Minneapolis,Minnesota with his wife and young children.