“I am most proud of helping people become the best in the business.”

Denise’s unconventional advertising career was always grounded in purpose.

She got her first agency job at 19, as keyline/pasteup artist, both working and attending UWM.

The first week, one of the partners called her upstairs to his office. His feet were on the desk.

“What do you aspire to do here?” he asked.

“Art director,” she responded confidently.

“That’s a mighty big ambition.”

Ambition exceeded – and then some, as it turns out. Because eventually Denise’s drive steered her away from layouts, and into leadership and brand planning — championing some of the country’s most lauded creative campaigns with her keen strategic insights.

It started with the opening of her first agency, which also coincided with her first pregnancy, partnering with husband Rich Kohnke, and then later David Hanneken, both Wisconsin Advertising Hall of Famers, to form the legendary ad shop, Kohnke Hanneken.

There, Denise headed strategic planning for Fortune 500 companies, local giants such as Potawatomi Casino, and national non-profits such as the YMCA of the USA and Lung Cancer Alliance. She’s developed creative briefs and made clients believe in those briefs so deeply that creative shown wasn’t challenged – and often approved on the spot. Besides “running things,” Denise has written TV and radio spots, videos, print and custom RFP responses that won the business before the first meeting.

She was chosen as a 2023 Wisconsin Titan of business. She’s an author and a frequent speaker, frequently imparting her wisdom to a new generation of young professionals. She’s been the force behind Best of Shows, One Show pencils, a Communication Arts profile, and awards including Effie, 4As Jay Chiat, Webby, OBIE, to name a few.

Her LinkedIn chapter series, called BOOK OF SECRETS, discusses advertising tenets and the science of persuading people to buy or think things they’ve not thought before. Her Substack, Denise Kohnke Half Unhinged, is a deep dive into the ironies of life written as if Robin Williams mumbled in his sleep.

And in her satirical, but true, must-read book: All of the Other Marketing Books are Crap, Denise imparts her deepest beliefs on the business of marketing, including this nugget;

“Here’s one that’s at least plausibly delusional: Great marketing and advertising people are the smartest, most powerful people in the world. Smarter than scientists. Smarter than educators. Way smarter than operations people or coders. Wait, you’re comparing marketing people to, like, physicists? You bet I am. It’s because we, of all professions, are required to live in precise harmony of left and right brain to prosper. When we don’t live in precise harmony, we fail from the arrogance of either logic or emotion…This multiplicity of power comes from nothing short of living in the divine Zone of the rational and the creative. This Flow Zone is a cultural force, molding people’s life experience through products, services, and belief systems like no other influence or discipline in modern society.  We’re merchant Jedi, and we manipulate the DNA of society. Believe no less.”

Strategic planner. Agency leader. New business chaser. Author. Deep thinker and inspirer.

Whatever her role, Denise Kohnke has had a major impact on the brands and the people she’s worked with.

And she has one simple request for the rest of us. Always use our powers for good.