Aaron Shapiro, co-founder and former CEO of Huge, is launching a new agency named Product. For the agency that both makes and markets products for a sustainable future, Shapiro has enlisted a team of industry talent from Huge, DDB and Havas.
Product has already attracted leading brands, including Google, Post Consumer Brands, Better, Chubb and Seeking Alpha.
The new independent agency has capabilities that span strategy, creative and technology, which it claims are applied through a “methodology that combines speed-to-market with high-quality outcomes, further optimized with machine learning and data,” according to a statement.
Shapiro, the founder and chairman of Product, is best known for building and growing Huge into a 1,500-person global digital agency that was acquired by IPG in 2008. His other roles have included founder and CEO of marketing automation SaaS company Silverpop, founder of IPG agency Elephant; and founder and CEO of Dayforward, a tech-driven, D2C life insurance company.
Shapiro will be joined by Chris Stempky, managing partner, who was previously managing director at Huge. Most recently, he helped found Faire, an experience design agency acquired by The Atlantic.
Tim Nolan comes on as partner, creative at Product. He formerly led creative at Huge, Havas Chicago and the Vice Digital Agency.
Auro Trini Castelli joins as partner, strategy and sustainability. He is the former chief strategy officer of DDB, Elephant and Gyro.
Carolyn Shapiro comes to Product as partner, finance and operations. She previously served as director of venture capital fund Reciprocal Ventures, and held senior-level positions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank Securities.
“We brought together a deep bench of experienced talent to guide clients through the trends reshaping business,” said Shapiro in a statement. “From the decarbonized economy to the proliferation of AI and the post-digital society, brands have to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation.”
Shapiro added that Product’s goal is to future-proof businesses and meet the demand for sustainable development.
“Our model is about rapidly launching high quality creative work, and then embracing data and machine learning to iterate,” said Stempky in a statement.
The agency is based in New York City.