About Ed Tettemer

2014 marks Ed’s 40th year in the communications business. He’s a writer by trade, a strategic planner by design, a failed bluegrass guitar player by experience, and a cook for the Strathmere Volunteer Fire Company by choice. But his passion is for helping folks connect dots they didn’t know could be connected. Or better yet, helping them see dots they didn’t know were there.

Ed was the founding partner of the contrarian advertising agency Red Tettemer, which he established in 1992 and left for higher callings on New Year’s Day in 2007.

His mantra, “a brand is the promise of an experience,” has been the guiding principle by which he has helped organizations large and small – for-profit and non - define their institutional missions, core values and brand promises.

Ed has launched television networks, breakfast sandwiches, cheap Chablis, shopping malls, travel blogs, ISPs, bank branches, tourist traps, arts festivals, horse tracks, law firms, free libraries, organ donor drives, yellow pages, circus trains, fortified wines, temporary staffing, science museums, parks & recreation departments, libraries, financial planners and a revitalized creative movement within the Philadelphia advertising community.

He has sparked landmark city and statewide marketing initiatives, including the creation of “Philly’s More Fun” and a roadtrip renaissance for the Commonwealth of PA’s Tourism Office. He remains a consultant to Visit Philadelphia, and continues to write food and travel blogs for several regional visitors bureaus. In Philadelphia, Ed serves on three of Mayor Nutter’s advisory boards.

Today, Ed serves on the boards of Leadership Philadelphia, The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and Citizens for Strathmere & Whale Beach. He is also a trusted advisor to The Free Library of Philadelphia. Ed was named as one of Philadelphia’s 76 Creative Connectors and was honored as a 2013 Philly Ad Club Mover & Shaker. His dinner parties are auctioned for thousands by charities, and he’s worked the short-order grill at his favorite breakfast joint for 3 summers just because he wants the experience.

Last year, Ed wrote and directed Union Rags: An American Love Story, an acclaimed film about the winner of The Belmont Stakes and the Wyeth who loves him.

Ed enjoys a blissful marriage and the love of a 30-year old daughter who he hopes will travel the world and never set foot in an advertising agency. You can find him half the time in his Center City home, half the time shunpiking around the country and the other half watching the Atlantic Ocean from his octagonal deck in Strathmere, NJ.

A registered Democrat, Ed would just as soon throw all the bums out.