As promised, media company VICE has continued encroaching on agencies’ business in the opening months of 2017.
Its primary agency Virtue Worldwide has existed in some form since 2006, but it effectively relaunched in January, when it brought on former Story Worldwide chief creative officer Lars Hemming Jorgensen as its new CEO and scored a Wall Street Journal writeup in the process.
That piece outlined the media company’s plans for a 450-person unit created by combining the old Virtue with Carrot Creative in VICE’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn headquarters.
Co-president Andrew Creighton said:
“A lot of brands have to hire so many different people and agencies, which creates multiple margins and disconnections in their communications. So having that all tied together is really important.”
And as noted in our headline, the agency has been in expansion mode, hiring from both traditional creative shops and other marketing departments to build out its team. Recent additions include:
- Head of strategy R.G. Logan, former brand strategy director at Pereira & O’Dell New York
- Design director Heather Pieske, former associate design director at (RED)
- Group creative director Miles Skinner, veteran of Nike, Translation, NSG/SWAT and Master & Dynamic
- Eugene Fuller, former copywriter at CP+B, Mother and Zoo Collective
- Quay Quin Settel, who spent more than 8 years as head of marketing at College Humor
In the WSJ piece, Creighton insisted that Virtue would not threaten any agencies, adding, “We play well together. At some point there is going to be push and pull and some tension. That’s a commercial reality. But we just want to do great work.”
Today a VICE spokesperson confirmed the hires and framed them as part of Virtue’s ongoing expansion plans.
The shop’s clients currently include Budweiser, Audi, Samsung, YouTube and more.