Bill Hillsman ’75 is a marketing and political consultant who has started or helped to start five successful ad agencies, including Periscope/Minneapolis and North Woods Advertising. Hillsman is a leading advocate of integrated marketing communications, with expertise in the areas of advertising, crisis communications, sports marketing, and digital communications. His agencies launched the Mall of America and the Minnesota Timberwolves, revitalized the Minnesota North Stars, and helped secure a new outdoor ballpark for the Minnesota Twins. He initiated Malt-O-Meal’s transition to MOM Brands and helped it become one of the largest sellers of breakfast cereal in the country. He has worked on public service campaigns and initiatives ranging from the nation’s first statewide AIDS awareness and prevention campaign to environmental and social justice, universal health care, veterans’ and union issues, gay marriage, medical marijuana approval, rural voting, and education reform.
Hillsman and North Woods gained national recognition for applying consumer marketing strategies to politics and challenger candidates. Hillsman and his team developed dozens of humorous and informative ads for Carleton professor Paul Wellstone’s successful underdog U.S. Senate campaign, despite an 8:1 spending disadvantage. In 1998, North Woods took on Reform Party candidate Jesse Ventura’s gubernatorial campaign. Though Ventura was outspent 16:1, he defeated both major party candidates, a victory many attributed to the unique ads Hillsman created. Hillsman’s creative work has brought him national honors for creativity in advertising, including over 100 POLLIE awards from the American Association of Political Consultants, an Emmy, a Peabody award, and numerous EFFIE awards from the American Marketing Association. In 1991, North Woods’ work for Wellstone took home the Grand EFFIE for the single most effective marketing campaign in America.
Hillsman has worked on numerous presidential, U.S. Senate, gubernatorial, congressional, mayoral, initiative, referendum, and other campaigns in 36 states. In 2002, Hillsman was invited to be a Resident Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Hillsman is the author of Run the Other Way: Fixing the Two-Party System, One Campaign at a Time.
Throughout his prolific career, Hillsman has continually demonstrated that he is a smart, independent thinker who cares deeply about the problems affecting America’s communities and American democracy and has tirelessly fought to include more voices in the electoral process.