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If you missed them on the Home page, please scroll down here to find my work for Adweek.com, AgencySpy, The Daily Illini, HerCampus Illinois, and AAF.

The Rising Marketer’s Guide to the CultureTap Academy Program

This is part of Adweek’s new series covering fellowship programs at agencies. As agencies continue to face a talent crunch, many recent graduates or career changers are seeking a way into the industry. Here, we cover programs for entry-level marketers at top agencies.

Weber Shandwick’s CultureTap Academy seeks out college students who don’t necessarily have a typical media and communications background. The communications agency founded the program this year, with an aim to supplement its exist

Media Mixes Must Be Balanced to Collapse Marketing Silos

Siloing brand and performance marketing efforts is becoming less common as marketers yearn for a more holistic approach, according to a new report by growth marketing agency 3Q/DEPT.

The agency’s 2022 Growth Marketing report bases its findings on survey responses from 400 U.S. marketing leaders at brands with $100 million or more in annual revenue. It evaluated responses across four distinct industries—health care, financial services, retail and technology.

Growth marketing, according to the r

Cutwater Brings a Musical Harvest Snaps Experience to TikTok Users

Cutwater, an indie agency that recently became the digital creative AOR for snack brand Harvest Snaps, is kicking off the partnership with a TikTok experience. The music-inspired campaign is designed to appeal to college students in the U.S. starting this fall.

College students comprise a market of conscientious spenders who are constantly on the lookout for the next new health craze, which is where “Snap Sounds“ comes in. It allows younger audiences that are frequent users of social media to e

Two Man Agency Undnyable Wins MOD Pizza Project

Undnyable, a two-man shop based out of Portland, Oregon recently won a national campaign project for MOD Pizza following a competitive pitch.

The agency, which has a mix of clients and agency talent based in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, was founded by Justin Hooper, the chief creative officer—and was originally an agency of one for five years, until Steve Williams joined this year. Now, Williams, creative director and writer, alongside Hooper and a small band of valued cont

Indie Agency Good Apple Reaches $1 Billion in Billings

Good Apple is an independent media agency that launched in 2008 amidst financial uncertainty. Today, the agency announced $1 billion in billings for the first time in its history.

The agency credits its achievement to years of hard work and the complete devotion of its employees. In addition to celebrating its financial upturn, Good Apple also confirmed its transition to fully remote operations.

In doing so, the agency is able to expand in new ways. Not only is it able to seek clients outside

The Rising Marketer’s Guide to B-Reel’s LA Open Program

This is part of Adweek’s new series covering fellowship programs at agencies. As agencies continue to face a talent crunch, many recent graduates or career changers are seeking a way into the industry. Here, we cover programs for entry-level marketers at top agencies.

In 2021, Catch Prep Charter High kick-started its LA Open program in collaboration with and under the mentorship of L.A.-based creative agency B-Reel.

LA Open is a program for rising high school seniors, especially those from und

Indie Agency Boathouse Names Peter Prodromou as New President

Independent agency Boathouse has appointed Peter Prodromou as its new president to bring a new dimension to its vision and expand operations on the west coast.

Before taking on his new role, Prodromou served as the CEO and president of global digital marketer and developer of interactive experience, Boston Digital.

Prodromou’s background lies in earned media and public relations and—prior to Boston Digital—he held positions at IEC Partners and Racepoint Global, where he rose to be CEO and pres

How Agencies Pick the Perfect Song for Their Ads

Some ads become synonymous with the music that accompanies them. Apple popularized Anderson .Paak’s “‘Til It’s Over” with a psychedelic-adjacent dance party, Dom Pérignon created a “queendom” to showcase the effervescent essence of Lady Gaga and Downy took viewers back in time through its 2021 rendition of Paul Anka’s “Times of Your Life.” And the goal of every music supervision company, which specialize in pairing songs and spots, is to reach that level of relevancy.

The Rising Marketer’s Guide to the January Digital Accelerated Program

This is part of Adweek’s new series covering fellowship programs at agencies. As agencies continue to face a talent crunch, many recent graduates or career changers are seeking a way into the industry. Here, we cover programs for entry-level marketers at top agencies.

January Digital founded its January Digital Accelerated Program in March 2022 to accelerate participants’ pathways to post-graduate work at the agency, which effectively speeds up their career trajectory.

January Digital hires pr

Anytime Fitness Picks Mischief as Its Creative AOR

The world’s largest fitness brand, Anytime Fitness, has selected Mischief @ No Fixed Address as its creative agency. Mischief will be tasked with leading creative support such as long-term brand development and campaign creation for the fitness giant.

To kick off the search, April Anslinger, the global chief marketing officer of Anytime’s parent company Self Esteem Brands, said Anytime had four C-suite executives work internally to pick three agencies to do discovery work with. During their fir

Trailer Park Group Launches New Gaming Agency, Mutiny

Trailer Park Group, a global leader in entertainment marketing and content production, has launched Mutiny, a new gaming agency born from the group’s recent successes and growth in gaming practices.

By launching Mutiny, Trailer Park Group will be able to tap into what is predicted to be a $250 billion gaming industry by 2025. As an integrative creative agency focused on gaming, Mutiny will allow the Group to create content, campaigns and dictate market-moving cultures.

Rick Eiserman, CEO of th

D&AD Shift With Google is Now Taking Applications for the 2022 New York Program

D&AD Shift with Google, an industry-led night school program for new creatives, has opened applications for its 2022 New York program. This free program, open to those without a college degree, is meant to break the barrier unaffordable education puts up for many talented professionals in the industry.

Shift, now in its sixth year, aims to create exemplary creatives who can develop their portfolios, network and land jobs. In the program, these self-made creatives can hone their skills in a supp

AIR and The One Club for Creativity Collaborate on DEI efforts

Volunteer-based organization Allies for Recruiting (AIR) has joined the One Club for Creativity family, adding to the non-profit’s diversity offering. The move will afford AIR the resources to expand its infrastructure and increase its scope of growth.

AIR represents a collective of recruiters from a variety of disciplines, including advertising, marketing and technology, creating representation and a sense of belonging within the industry. That goes hand-in-hand with The One Club for Creativit

Study Shows Americans Want CEOs to Respond to Systemic Racism

With each passing year, America’s political, social and economic issues become more intertwined, impacting the lives of individual citizens as well as the interests of public and privately-owned entities.

The Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual survey examining corporations’ trust and credibility, exposed the pressing need for companies to address—and rectify—their approaches to social justice, particularly racial justice, in its latest report. Conversations in these areas remain the subject of

Deep Eddy Vodka Appoints McGarrah Jessee as First AOR

Following a competitive review, Deep Eddy Vodka named indie full-service ad agency McGarrah Jessee (McJ) its agency of record.

The Austin agency will handle creative, social and media for the Austin-based liquor brand and the agency plans to integrate its teams with Deep Eddy’s. The company previously relied on agency partners, in a narrow scope, to support its social media and mobile marketing programs.

McJ will be the first agency of record for Deep Eddy Vodka, with a remit to help scale the

Health Snacks Company Harvest Snaps Names Cutwater as Digital Creative Agency of Record

Harvest Snaps of Calbee America Inc., which bills itself as the better for you (BFY) snack brand, has named Cutwater as its new digital creative AOR.

Cutwater, an independent agency with offices in New York City and San Francisco, also recently won creative and media AOR duties for pet care brand Hartz.

The agency will support Harvest Snaps’ focus on growing within the market through its reimagined campaigns and the launch of its direct to consumer platform. In addition to this first brand pla

GroupM Nexus Enhances Its Media Transformation Through New Leadership Appointments

GroupM Nexus, WPP’s performance media investment group, has made new leadership appointments following its recent media agency mergers.

Earlier this year WPP executed a collection of mergers amongst its media agencies, including the creation of GroupM Nexus, which brought together the digital and media services of GroupM Services, Xaxis, Finecast and Copilot, a proprietary AI technology.

In addition to GroupM Nexus, the company made two other consolidations—Essence and Mediacom to form Essence

M&C Saatchi’s CRM Agency One-to-One Brings Human Intelligence to Marketing

M&C Saatchi is rebranding creative customer agency Lida as One-to-One, a customer relationship management agency. The agency will optimize its communications using a marketing technology platform called MarTech Studio to help build stronger client relations.

One-to-One is M&C Saatchi’s latest creative solution to bridge the gaps between tech-data and business using human intelligence. Through the studio, clients will receive expert support with reporting automation, database clean ups and every
The Daily Illini •

Covalent program seeks to give students experience, bolster diversity

Walker Post, alum from the University, is the founder and CEO of Covalent. The program will be partnering with the Hub for Brand Innovation and Advertising Technology in providing a fellowship experience over the summer.

When the world was in the midst of a pandemic in April 2020, Walker Post and Alex Littleton created the COVID-19 Business Fellowship. The program benefited the numerous college students who had lost highly competitive internships.

Since then, the COVID-19 Business Fellowship t
The Daily Illini •

K-pop community hosts dance competition at UI

ItzUs performs at Lincoln Hall for the first K-Pop dance competition on Sunday. The K-Pop dance group Truth and Beauty hosted the competition that featured a variety of groups such as ItzUs, Express Your Seoul and more.

A microcosm of the energetic universe of Korean pop was displayed at Lincoln Hall on Sunday when Truth and Beauty, a K-pop dance team at the University, organized the campus’ first K-pop dance contest.

TNB was started in 2019 by co-President Julia Cima. Since then, the group gr
The Daily Illini •

Putting women on first base: Student creates podcast for female athletes

Aniyha Jones, junior in Business, speaks at an Athleta event in Chicago on Sept. 27. Jones created the podcast “You’re Wrong, Sir” with its purpose to educate people and give those an outlet for their thoughts to be heard in regards to the sports industry.

Historically, sports have long been male-dominated, and today as sports commentary evolves across various media platforms, men seem to be primarily the ones sitting in front of the microphone.

However, one student at the University aims to c
The Daily Illini •

Professor uses hip-hop to turn the tables on education

William Patterson, clinical associate professor in FAA and lecturer in Engineering and technological entrepreneurship, is the founder of the Hip Hop Express: Double Dutch Boom Bus. The vehicle helps educate youth through technology and Black music.

The gravel rumbles as a unique-looking school bus passes over the black tar. The bus is painted light silver with blue, orange and yellow depictions of various hip-hop artists in waves of color along the side. Above the windows reads four words: “Dou
The Daily Illini •

Couples embrace cultural influence on Valentine’s Day celebrations

The “Eternal Flame” located in the main quad was a gift from the Class of 1912. It is a popular location for people to kiss by the landmark in hopes for eternal love.

Once a year, a day comes when the air is sweeter. Everything seems rose-tinted and the rose bushes lay bare while the sales of chocolate inflate. Cupid flutters around happily examining a job well done.

As Valentine’s Day arrives, couples at the University participate in many different celebrations and expressions of love. Cultur
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