Atlanta agency Dagger is launching Dagger Originals, a TV development company with a focus on stories that originate from the Southeast United States. 

Dagger Originals will live under the Dagger umbrella and will position the agency closer to the world of entertainment—which Dagger Chief Creative Officer Al Patton sees as the place for people’s engagement moving toward. 

“A TV development company that lives within an ad agency seemed like a logical way to keep us close to that bar,” said Patton, adding that Originals allows Dagger to offer insight from a brand and client perspective as well. “A lot of times consumer trends start in the entertainment space and the marketing world needs to catch up—this will allow us to stay ahead of those.”

The endeavor reunites Dagger VP Group Creative Director Lance Krall with Tara Ochs, who launched Picture It Productions in 2016. During the company’s four-year run, the pair worked with producers such as Jerry Bruckheimer, Laurence Fishburne and Drew Barrymore as well as CBS Studios. Ochs joins as Dagger Originals head of development.

Krall, a Hollywood alumnus who wrote for hit TV shows including "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Last Man Standing," joined Dagger in 2021 and will add the title of head of TV at Dagger Originals. 

Dagger Originals will focus on developing new programming in the network, cable and streaming spaces and will be separate from the agency’s traditional advertising output. An advertising agency creating original TV content makes sense to Krall, who says that one of the biggest challenges is packaging the idea with the right writer or producer to be attractive to networks and streaming services. 

“In order to get people interested, you have to sell the idea to them in a way that is easily digestible,” he said. “An advertising agency with the ability to do amazing pitch decks and have strategic insights can help market that idea to attract talent and ultimately sell that idea to the marketplace.” 

The TV development company also offers Dagger clients opportunities to integrate with Dagger Originals work through product placement, ad programming and branded content, but Krall says that will only account for about 5% of Dagger Originals’ focus. 

“Our energies are mostly going to be going into looking for great IP and real stories that come from places outside of Los Angeles and New York,” Krall said, adding that Dagger Originals will highlight artists and creative minds mainly in Atlanta and the southeastern U.S. “That is sort of an underserved point of view or perspective,” he added.

The new company will also give current Dagger employees an alternative creative outlet to their advertising expertise. Krall and Ochs are bringing them in on the ground level and offering an access point to the TV industry. 

“Whenever I have a new idea coming in, we're creating a sort of writer's room space where people can be a part of the creative conversation,” Ochs said. “They're learning a little bit more about storytelling from a television point of view, but they're also bringing in their natural creative instincts to help service the process of making those ideas coalesce into something.”

Dagger Originals is already working on about a dozen projects, according to Ochs, and Krall expects to start selling to networks as early as the first quarter of next year. The goal is to release TV shows in 2024. 

This isn’t Dagger’s first time expanding beyond the advertising industry. In 2018, the agency opened Butter.ATL, an in-house media entity and culture channel designed to celebrate its home city of Atlanta. In an effort to “unlock its full growth potential,” Patton and the Dagger team plan to partially spin Butter.ATL off to a new ownership group that includes Big Boi of Outkast and Killer Mike of Run the Jewels.