Chad Costas (MBA ’99)
Cox MBA Utilizes SMU Connections to Form Award-Winning Advertising Agency
In high school, Costas attended boarding school in Connecticut, where he quickly tired of the coat and tie dress code. It was then that he developed his “look” – an ever-present bowtie – as a way to stand out, if only slightly. The look stuck with him, and he continues to don the signature accessory.
“I think there is something about wearing a bowtie that makes one seem somewhat mischievous, like you don’t know what they’re going to say or do next,” said Costas. “Which fits me pretty well.”
After high school, Costas promptly headed to Dallas to attend SMU, where he majored in advertising. Despite his parents’ wish for Costas to get a “suit job” upon graduation, he instead headed to New York City where he landing a marketing gig at a well-known record label.
“It’s a great first job for a 22-year-old kid and I highly recommend it,” said Costas. “My friends had 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. office jobs. I got to hang out with rock stars.”
After four years of hanging around rock stars and groupies, Costas was hungry for academic knowledge. He packed his bags and moved back to Dallas to reset his professional life by earning an MBA from SMU Cox.
“I was able to learn and grow academically in ways I hadn’t in undergrad, which allowed me to determine what path I wanted to strike – and do something I not only enjoyed and was really good at, but also could provide a decent living,” said Costas.
Costas knew he wanted to go into marketing, but he found marketing departments at the companies for which he interviewed to be very “boring.” However, as luck would have it, he found an opportunity that would shape the trajectory of his career.
“I was in the Business Leadership Center one day and noticed that Tracy-Locke was looking for an MBA candidate to work on the Pepsi account,” he said. “I think I was the only one who applied, which meant I was the best qualified. Once I got there I realized that was what I wanted to do when I graduated.”
Costas was able to satisfy his business and academic interests surrounded by people who solved problems every day in a creative way. He found it invigorating to watch an idea form, take shape and change throughout the process on the way to becoming something real.
After Tracy-Locke, Costas sharpened his skill set at some of the top advertising agencies in Dallas – Temerlin McClain, DDB Dallas and The Integer Group. He learned everything he could about all the possible marketing disciplines that help motivate consumers to buy a product including branding, mass reach advertising, direct response, retail marketing and consumer promotions.
Several years later, Costas enrolled in Jerry White’s “Starting a Business” class, and he began to think starting a company would be the next step in his career. As fate would have it, he ended up connecting with three other men with SMU backgrounds who would change the course of his life. They started talking about their future and how they wanted to control it.
The four talents, all possessing significant big brand and big agency experience, asked each other how they could build a better creative agency. Together, they went on to form Black Lab Creative, and created a paradigm shift within the advertising industry by establishing an agency that cares about its clients, listens to them, partners with them, and works hard to achieve their objectives.
“SMU as a school has had a big impact on our company and partners’ lives. We all went to SMU, and one of my partners still likes to think he goes there, at least on the Boulevard during football season,” said Costas. “When we started our company, we actually officed out of the SMU library for about three months. Free wi-fi and study closets for client calls saved us until we found a place of our own.”
Today, Black Lab Creative is a highly-respected, award-winning creative agency with an impressive client roster including Simple Solution, Baylor Health Care System Foundation and two entities of Bright & Co. – Castle Hills and American Legend Homes. Black Lab Creative was recently awarded its first Dallas ADDY Award, presented by the Dallas Ad League for the design and development of the 2009-2010 Baylor Health Care System Foundation Annual Fund campaign. Proof – according to Costas – that all it takes is hard work, determination and a bowtie.