The Kazooks

We help clients tell their stories by developing the vocabulary, the visuals, and the tools they need to help them tell their stories in the most compelling way possible. These are the people (we like to call ourselves the Kazooks) who tell the stories that build the buzz:

Tom Dupont, Account Director

Tom has over 25 years of experience in sales management, market research, publishing, advertising, and design. He has orchestrated product introductions, managed franchise cooperatives, developed corporate identities, and helped clients of all sizes implement successful brand strategies. He's the "big picture" guy, the Kazook in charge of overseeing strategic branding and marketing services. There is nothing in this world he gets a bigger kick out of than developing successful brands for clients. Every once in a while, he gets fairly passionate about golf as well.

Melissa Carpenter, Creative Director

Melissa is an experienced designer, web developer and illustrator. She has applied her creative brand marketing skills in both corporate and agency environments, which provides clients a unique perspective. In addition to Melissa’s versatile range of experience with clients and agencies, she is sometimes known to break out into song if the music really moves her. She guides all creative activities through hands-on design, strategic input and supervision.

Abby Haddican, Writer

Abby is a graduate of the University of Minnesota's English program. A scribbler, a doodler, and a bookworm, Abby's a sucker for a good story and she loves helping our clients tell theirs. Before she landed at Kazoo, Abby worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, teaching impressionable high schoolers how to curse like a real American. Her job is to build buzz for clients with great story telling.

Caitlin Dykstra, Traffic and Administration

Caite has completed several business-related courses at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. She has been with Kazoo from the very beginning. Her job is to keep us all coordinated to ensure that every aspect of the project goes smoothly and is completed on time. Because Caite is so facile with excel spreadsheets, she is a great resource for Final Four Bracketology.  

 A note on our business model

Our capabilities are big, our experience is deep, and our roster of strategic partners is long. We’ve developed strong relationships with a network of researchers, photographers, filmmakers, web developers, and other creative professionals who we select to be part of our team on a project-by-project basis. This business model works very well for us and for our clients, because it gives us the freedom to select the best possible team for every single project we take on. It all adds up to amazing strategic and creative work at a great value.