OC Creative making a mark on DeKalb business landscape

Peace, Love, Art

OC CREATIVE MAKING A MARK ON DEKALB BUSINESS LANDSCAPE

By: Kelley White

Top: An OC Creative shoots a Super Bowl commercial for Midwest Express Clinic in February 2022.

Middle: OC Creative President Brian Oster reviews a logo design for Mynd Match.

Bottom: OC Creative’s values are on display in their DeKalb office.

ith a Super Bowl commercial to its credit and many successful niche projects to its name, OC Creative of DeKalb is a local business worth watching. The niche advertising agency makes a unique mark on the local business landscape of DeKalb. For Brian Oster, the company president and creative director, his journey with OC Creative all began with the desire to be closer to his family. “We were out in Davenport, and my mom had a stroke. Long story short, we wanted to be closer to family and move back in this direction,” Oster said. “We landed here as a temporary stay at first, but I ended up realizing this is where I wanted to stay within six months – the community was phenomenal. That’s what I found here more than anyone else. It’s a warm, welcoming business community.” Oster bought OC Creative in January 2016. However, at first he did not have a strong desire to buy the company. “My dad was pretty absent, and I feared that I would easily make OC my bride,” Oster said. “Between community people cheering me on and the previous owner being the best boss I ever had, I told my wife to hold me accountable so that I don’t turn into the dad I had. After six months of juggling that decision, we purchased the company Jan. 2, 2016.”

OC Creative is an award-winning creative agency with services that include photography and video production (top right) as well as design, such as the Byers Brewing can designs (middle right) and Family Service Agency website (bottom right).

Oster gives a lot of credit to his former boss and previous owner David Barrow, an enigmatic man with a talent for leadership and love for adventure. After three years together at OC Creative, Barrow left to pursue work on a documentary in his hometown, which left Oster to run the business. “It became trial by fire for me,” Oster said. “When he came back it was late 2015 and he wanted to know if I was interested in buying the company.” The first year into Oster’s ownership of OC Creative, he asked their part-time writer to help him document their core values. Within a week, he wrote them based on what he observed within the company. “We create the integrity we believe in, and we are going to be the people we expect our clients to be and set the example. We give back, we donate, and we bring the arts to life in the community,” Oster said. “We build relationships that last, and we want clients to stay and to grow and to trust us. We improve at every opportunity, and I want to make sure employees know they can fail and make mistakes; in the end, we just want to encourage each other. We empower each other to succeed and celebrate each other’s successes. We customize every job for every client.” OC Creative transitioned from an advertising agency to a creative agency under Oster’s leadership. “It’s a niche that specifically means we don’t want to do cookie cutter, rinse, and repeat products,” he said. “We just want to focus on the creative work which entails custom writing, and none of our logos, designs or videos ever look the same.” The success of OC Creative thus far can be heavily attributed to Oster’s leadership and business philosophies. “I’ve had many bosses profess to being Christian, but they didn’t really live it out in the workplace,” Oster said. “I want to be Christlike in how I lead, whether my team is or isn’t. We had no benefits when I started, but we have added one benefit a year based on what the team desired most at that time.” Oster does not particularly like referring to his team as employees or staff because he understands the importance of such labeling. “Words make a difference, and I want to be purposeful to say I would be nothing without a team,” Oster said. “One of my talents is to understand and read a client so I can communicate between a client and the creative. We’ve described OC with our clients and the community as a creative catalyst and we have incredible cohesiveness and creativity.”

Oster strives to foster a laid-back workplace that encourages freedom of expression. He believes that kind of environment stimulates success and a healthy, happier workplace. “From the start, I established that we aren’t an hour-driven agency,” Oster said. “We are project- or task-driven. While I am more of an observant leader, I think I have found the balance between being collaborative and having autonomy, which adds to their productivity. I’m more of a coach. This freedom has created such a collaborative and creative environment where I encourage them to be curious and challenge themselves.” One of the company’s most exciting accomplishments was adding their name to the Super Bowl commercial roster. “We did a Super Bowl commercial, and it was fantastic. We loved it, but now that we’re a few months past that, its on to what’s next,” Oster said. “How can we challenge ourselves further? It’s not a hunger, but a team that likes to challenge themselves and continue evolving.” OC Creative is a niche agency with creative evolvement in mind. “I grew up in a time when most agencies were a one-stop shop,” Oster said. “It worked at the time, but it was a bit mediocre. As that formatting fades in effectiveness, this specific niche gives us high barriers to entry, meaning if you want something custom and creative and there’s a budget for it, that’s what we’re here for. This niche allows us to grow, and I don’t have to worry about competing. It’s not a commodity. We want to make sure what we do distinguishes us creatively.” Alongside his business at OC, Oster pours his love of the community into everything he does, instilling this value in his team as well. “The majority of the women working for us – which OC is majority female – are a part of Gather, which is a women in business group under the DeKalb Chamber. There are enough bald white guys out there, and my role is not to build myself up. I’ll do just fine with the privileges that I have. We need to build others up, and we have incredible diversity on our staff.” OC Creative takes a hand in local creative initiatives, furthering the cultural arts of the DeKalb area. For example, the business launched an initiative to rotate displays of the Kishwaukee Valley Art League’s work in the OC Creative office. Aside from a gallery in Sycamore, the art league had limited spaces to show work. “The next initiative we are doing is having some downtown art,” Oster said. “I want to see the alley that goes from Van Buren Plaza from Lincoln Highway filled twice a year with artistic things. For example, this spring and summer I want to see 200 colored umbrellas lining the alley, so you get beautiful color. For Corn Fest, I want to have 200 sunflowers hanging upside down just to give people to take a picture and go downtown and enjoy the art, realizing those kinds of things are here in DeKalb County – sometimes you just have to go and make it.” OC Creative is a shining example of a healthy workplace doing good in their community with impressive creativity and a warm persona. “Art is an important part of my business and my philosophy behind my business – it is behind everything,” Oster said. “We want to be a creative catalyst in any way that we can.”