Ari Weiss’ agency Quality Experience adds Droga5 and McCann execs

Ari Weiss has revealed the name and branding of his new independent agency—Quality Experience—and recruited top Droga5 and McCann execs for its leadership team. Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Enter here Dan Gonda and Colleen Leddy are joining from Droga5 New York, where Gonda had been CEO since last April and Leddy served as co-chief strategy officer. Joining from McCann is Cristina Reina, most recently the agency’s global executive creative director and head of art for McCann North America. Gonda becomes CEO of Quality Experience, Leddy is chief strategy officer and Reina is chief creative officer. Weiss, who stepped down as DDB’s global chief creative officer late last year, is Quality Experience’s founder and creative chairman. Look back: Ari Weiss is starting an independent agency The agency has not yet announced any clients. The partners are familiar with each other. Before McCann, Reina worked with Weiss at DDB for several years. Leddy worked with Weiss at BBH New York more than a decade ago. Gonda and Leddy just worked at Droga5 together for more than a decade. “Usually you do this kind of thing [opening an agency] with one or two people. To do it with such killer pros at every level—I’ve never seen it done like this,” Weiss told Ad Age. “It feels like we’re playing with the most high-performance machine there is.” The pursuit of value Weiss and his partners said the name Quality Experience (aka, QX), a more utilitarian-sounding name than a “creative” one, captures the agency’s ethos: that every interaction between brands and consumers is an experience that must bring value to both sides—regardless of format, budget or channel. Rarely is this the case, they said. Brand work doesn’t often rise to the level of the entertainment that people willingly consume. And even when agencies do get consumers’ attention with a buzzy idea—amid the increasing glut of content available to them—too often it fails to generate long-term value for the brand. “A lot of agencies come up with ideas that are strategically sound—even creatively compelling. They look great in the industry press. But if you’re not providing value, it won’t take off and spread,” Weiss said. “We’re not Netflix. We’re advertising. We have to work that much harder to be Netflix. It’s not a low bar.” Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here All four QX leaders have a history of doing uniquely shaped advertising that’s broken through in unexpected formats and channels. Weiss and Leddy worked on Axe’s “Susan Glenn” at BBH, a pioneering film project with an elaborate digital footprint unusual at the time. Gonda led the inventive Newcastle Brown Ale account at Droga5 for years. Leddy has crafted countless innovative strategies for Droga clients through the years. Weiss led “Broadway the Rainbow,” “Apologize the Rainbow” and other ambitious Skittles projects at DDB. And Reina’s work at McCann includes Microsoft’s celebrated “ADLaM” language digitization project. The partners said they will leverage all of that experience to create QX’s offering of modern, culture-driven marketing that earns affinity and loyalty through simple ideas that flex across touchpoints—building brands, not just PR attention through one-offs. “The old playbook isn’t working,” said Leddy. “Linear stories have less value than ever before. This will be the first year that television viewership is the minority in terms of channels. There are 400 million stories uploaded to Instagram daily. We want to live in that space—in the way people are consuming across touchpoints and across culture.” “The kinds of ideas that have always excited me are grounded in a real truth for consumers but show up in different places than you might expect—and add value in those places,” said Gonda. “There’s lots of agencies that are doing pieces of that well, but not pulling it all together in the way this group can.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs “This trend of being loud for the sake of being loud to capture attention, but without providing true value, it’s not helping to create an ecosystem that people might be attracted to,” added Reina. “In the end, the most important thing is having people care about the brand and feel like it means something to them.” Building the QX identity QX also unveils its brand identity today centered around a logo designed by &Walsh. It’s actually five logos—a main version and four variations. The multiple logos are meant to embody the agency’s flexibility—meeting clients where they are and not leaning on any house style. The ornate mark is also designed to complement the agency name. “‘Quality Experience’ is a pretty blunt name—and by design. We wanted the visual identity to reinforce how serious we are about the craft and the quality of the experience,” Weiss said. “At first, Jessica [Walsh] and her team were like, ‘Are you sure about the name?’ We were definitely sure, and to us, it was an incredible design opportunity: How do you take the bluntness out of the name? How do you bring emotion and craft into it?” &Walsh also developed Gut’s logo, which the QX founders said was one of the few examples of another agency logo that truly breaks through. “It’s based on the idea of friction—friction between the bluntness of the name and the beauty of the imagery,” Reina said of the QX identity. “It’s also the friction between beauty and danger in a sense. It creates a really interesting visual tension.” There is also a 3D version of the logo: In the absence of client work to share at launch, Weiss said he hoped the visual identity offers a glimpse of the care and craft—the quality experience—the agency hopes to deliver. He also pointed to the photo of the partners (at the top of this story) as further evidence of QX’s approach. “It was taken by Norman Jean Roy, who is one of the great portrait photographers,” Weiss said. “I hope it shows we’re pulling out all the stops. We’re delivering that quality experience with Roy, and with &Walsh. Hopefully we’re starting to create our story and live up to that story in how we bring ourselves to life.” Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here

Ari Weiss’ new agency, Quality Experience, names Droga5 and McCann execs to top roles

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