Member Article

New UK agency launch: Award-winning US agency JOAN Creative opens JOAN London

Independent creative and brand transformation agency, JOAN Creative today announced the opening of new international office, JOAN London, to accelerate the agency’s global expansion and bring its unique joyful rebellion to leading UK and EMEA brands.

JOAN London is the first international expansion of the New York-based, award-winning agency JOAN Creative and its full-service maker studio, JOAN Studios – founded by Lisa Clunie and Jaime Robinson in 2016. JOAN London will be led by Executive Creative Director Kirsty Hathaway, former VP Creative at Refinery29 and Managing Director Tom Ghiden, formerly joint Head of Business Leadership at McCann London who will be joining the agency in mid-August.

JOAN has become the formidable challenger to the big agency model. The agency is designed to push against the exclusionary nature of advertising agencies. They believe strongly that a diverse team better connects brands to culture. And it’s working. JOAN continues to bring the creativity and agility to build its reputation while growing an impressive AOR roster and making major investments to offer a global, integrated offering.

Leveraging JOAN’s proprietary strategic brand mapping tool, The Growth Wheel, to build brand leaders and drive transformation, JOAN London will speak directly to audiences across the UK and EMEA. The JOAN team has a deep knowledge of audience-building, establishing strong brands and creating cultural moments, with a focus on fiercely modern media approaches, such as editorial, content, social and digital.

JOAN London brings together a team of diverse backgrounds and expertise to deliver the JOAN mission of making legendary brands modern, and modern brands legendary.

Lisa Clunie, Co-Founder and CEO at JOAN, commented: “The UK is renowned for its world-leading culture and diversity and it perfectly represents everything that is important to JOAN. We have big ambitions for the UK, and we’re ready to create iconic moments for iconic brands and drive all-important change.”

Jaime Robinson, Co-Founder and CCO at JOAN, said: “Working with Kirsty has been wildly thrilling. She never ceases to surprise me, and she and Tom have an uncanny knack for building ideas that hit home with real people with real eyeballs and real dreams. Expect huge things.”

Kirsty Hathaway, Executive Creative Director at JOAN London, said: “I can’t wait to fuse JOAN’s joyfully rebellious attitude, strategic prowess and big thinking with my editorial and culture-driven background to help build modern brands and tell impactful stories. I am excited about being able to merge the best culture-making talent, the most interesting brains and true diverse thinking from both the advertising and editorial worlds to bring something new to London’s advertising.”

Tom Ghiden, Managing Director at JOAN London, said: “I’ve always believed in the significance of inclusivity. JOAN London celebrates the magic that comes from a beautifully curated group of people bringing together diverse thinking from all walks of life and experience – gender, race, LGBTQ+, Neurodiversity, socio-economic diversity, career, passions and more. We can’t wait to start working with brands that are excited about doing something new.”

The launch of JOAN London comes at a time of significant momentum for the fast-growing agency. The new office opens with an already impressive roster of clients that includes eBay, Cereal Partners Worldwide (CPW), Rare Beauty, and mission-led start-up, Luna Daily. In the past year, the agency has welcomed dozens of new employees and moved into a new office in New York to accommodate its growing team. Last year, JOAN was named Adweek’s Small Agency of the Year, and recognised as Adweek’s Fastest Growing Agencies and was a 2022 Ad Age A-List Standout agency.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Business News .