This week we're shining our company spotlight on an award-winning creative company named Independent Agency of the Year by Campaign and Small Agency of the Year by Adweek. JOAN is all about inclusion and diversity and its Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Jaime Robinson, is the perfect person to talk us through what makes it so special and tell us all about it's recent international expansion.
Why did JOAN choose London for its first international expansion?
The talent. The culture. The diversity. The energy. The mushy peas.
What has been JOAN's proudest achievement?
We love using our wild creativity to fight the bad guys in entirely unexpected ways.
For example, to fight against the American fentanyl overdose epidemic, we reached out to teens and young adults to give them the info they needed. But kids aren’t going to listen to another parent or police officer saying don’t do drugs.
Instead, we brought in the true experts in a surprise stunt, and replaced all of the day’s normal teachers with a rather unorthodox group of substitute teachers – former drug dealers who went to places most teachers and parents wouldn’t. This was Substitute Dealers, a powerful campaign we launched in partnership with the Ad Council.
We’re also really proud of our incredible roster of top tier clients.
Can you explain your team’s creative process? What makes it unique?
We start by pulling together the most diverse group of thinkers we can find. We don’t typecast on briefs. You just end up with boring, expected ideas.
Then we ask ourselves what’s the most surprising but utterly true way to get people’s attention. We push and push each other until someone has the idea that just has that electricity.
How does your team remain inspired and motivated?
There’s nothing that keeps creatives motivated more than being able to get work you love made, and to be able to really feel like you can be creatively free. We’ve had a really great year of putting work out that gets celebrated, but it all starts with being insanely passionate about the thing you are making.
How do you foster a culture of diversity and inclusion within the agency?
Since day one, our goal has been to build an ambitiously diverse team and create platforms to elevate underrepresented talent.
We’re so proud to be a 62% female-owned agency, 34% BIPOC and 16% LGBTQ+ (JOAN New York office), with many of our employees coming from outside the advertising industry. That means we bring an outsider’s perspective to our client’s business problems, and can see more.
What is one tip that you would give to other agencies looking to grow?
One move that has really helped our growth was born during the peak of the pandemic. We were pitching around the clock and taking way too many project-based engagements, which made it difficult to forecast and hire.
So, we started to shift from the shorter projects to long-term agency of record work. Now we’re applying our creativity to more strategic and upstream work for global, marquee clients.
How does your agency keep up with technological changes and trends, and what strategies do you use to stay ahead of the curve creatively?
We share everything we can constantly with one another, either in agency meetings or in our weekly cultural newsletter. There’s a spirit of curiosity and exploration with new tech. We play with things a lot, and we have an attitude that is open. There’s no use being afraid of technology. It’s magic, so get in there!
Can you explain what JOAN London is and the mission behind the agency?
JOAN is known for its joyfully rebellious spirit, we’re an agency where we look for the right answer and the right solution rather than the expected. An end to end agency, we combine diverse thinking, talent and experience to push conventional advertising norms.
Why? Because we want to create work for our clients that delivers on both their brand and business objectives. Oh, and we also want to attract the best, most diverse, most unique talent in the city because they know at JOAN, nothing’s off the table.
What’s the biggest opportunity for you and your agency in the next year?
The first year of a new opening is always the most exciting, because anything is possible. We’re pretty laser focused about offering something new into the industry. Not because we want to be different for the sake of it, but because we believe it’s needed - the world is changing faster than we can comprehend.
The most exciting opportunity we have is to find those brand partners that are thirsty for change, who want to create iconic moments and narratives and set their brand apart. Also, the flood of incredible talent is mind blowing. We really do have the opportunity to build an agency of the most incredible brains, hell bent on collaborating and creating the best work possible. Work that matters, makes you smile, makes you laugh, makes you go whaaaaat?
Who is your next dream client and why?
Ohhhhh! Great question. We talk about making modern legends. So either making modern brands legendary to stand the test of time, or the legendary brands that need to modernise to be relevant. Either of these challenges is what gets us going in the morning.
To add another layer of dream onto that, our ideal brand partner is one that shares our joyfully rebellious spirit. One who wants to be remembered, wants to make culture, not just play in it. It’s not the easiest time to be big, bold and brave, but creating great partnerships between agency and brand is, we believe, the holy grail - to create and build that north star together.
What’s your one big hope for the future of the industry?
Diversity is in our lifeline at JOAN. We celebrate the outsider and really believe this is to be the future of the industry - a move away from the unexpected. We believe to see great progress in women in leadership positions - and throughout the industry - although, more can always be done. Especially in the pay gap.
But, there is a lot of work to do to build this industry as a genuine reflection of the world in which we create ads for. We sit in a world where brands are competing with not just other brands, but people/influencers on social media. We need to be representative of the actual world rather than the industry. We cannot wait to see how this continues to affect the great strategic and creative thinking.
