Matthew Gardner and Erik Högfeldt spent 7 years together at Droga5 before deciding to go off on their own this summer to launch Highfield, which they describe as “a full-service creative agency” that is “making the world a place that buys more of your products.” The pair says that, while theirs is not a strictly social media agency, it does take a “social first” approach to client work.
On that note, the org’s first campaign — which dropped last week — is a series of Facebook-specific videos for Swedish clothing brand GANT, which is looking to build its brand in the U.S. The Highfield team handled the work along with director Cameron Harris and production company Gravy Productions.
The ads are designed to be viewed with or without sound as one scrolls through a standard Facebook feed. The first, which mocks VR trends, was promoted via a partnership with the news group Now This Future.
“For both of us, this has always been our goal: to set up shop and run our own agency,” said Högfeldt. “We were both given a fantastic opportunity to start our careers at an agency that was, at that time, still in its early stages. So it was worth it to stick around and grow with those people until it was time for our plan to kick in.”
Högfeldt and Gardner served as creative director and director of brand influence, respectively, at a Droga5 that had not quite achieved its current status in the agency world. Their new unit, which is really only a few weeks old, now has an office in Tribeca and a staff of approximately 8 people focusing on strategy and creative.
These are the principals along with third partner Jared Spiegel (left), who handles operations.
Another spot from the GANT campaign shared by Now This Election gets to the campaign’s underlying theme: dress like you know what you’re doing even when you very obviously don’t.
“We treat media as part of strategy in an era when you can press the buttons yourself,” Gardner said in explaining his new agency’s approach.
“We really are trying to keep control of the entire process not because we are control freaks but because it gives us the opportunity … to run the whole race from idea to tracking and then fine-tuning,” Högfeldt added. “We’re fighting against the stuff we created and getting better with it.”
Regarding Highfield’s focus on social, he said: “Right now people’s attention is limited, so a natural way for us to enter the industry is by utilizing these platforms in the same way a bigger shop would utilize bigger platforms. We’re betting that a core idea can start, run and finish all within the infrastructure of a social media platform [like Facebook].”
Here’s another riff on that core idea, because “nobody watches video with sound anymore.”
Both Gardner and Högfeldt told us that Highfield will not necessarily specialize in creating Facebook ads; the idea is that they can apply their approach to whichever platform works best for a given client.
“It’s a small world; GANT is Swedish-owned and I happen to be Swedish,” said Högfeldt in explaining how Highfield landed its first account. “When I announced that Matthew and myself were going to take off, it spread to certain stakeholders. They reached out and that’s how it came to be.”
After coming up with the idea for a campaign designed to live in Facebook news feeds, the Highfield guys reached out to Now This for a partnership.
The work will continue to run on Facebook for the next few months and will also include a content marketing component by way of what Gardner called “long-form blog posts featuring entrepreneurs basically admitting that they are winging it and learning as they go.”
So even esteemed thought leaders often have no real idea what they are doing? We are shocked.
Highfield has signed with multiple clients but wasn’t ready to discuss any except GANT for this story. “It happened very fast … we are recruiting people from around the New York City area,” said Högfeldt.
Regarding their experience at Droga5 and the way it prepared them to launch their own operation, Gardner said, “We absolutely loved our experience and loved everyone there: David, Sarah, Ted, Jonny and all our close friends and mentors. [Droga5] obviously did get very big very fast, and it has been fun to get back to a small-scale operation, the hustle and being able to touch every single little thing on the finished project from insight to execution.”
Högfeldt and Gardner told us that a second, unnamed Highfield project will be rolling out within the next few months.