Chicago-based agency OKRP is launching Putney, an independent Black-owned production and content studio.
Putney will emphasize the hiring of BIPOC talent and aims to help brands create intentional work that better connects with their audiences.
Elena Robinson, OKRP’s head of production, becomes CEO of Putney. Aubrey Walker, OKRP’s executive creative director, retains that title at Putney.
Agency News
OKRP launches Black-owned production and content studio Putney
The Chicago company will be led by Elena Robinson and Aubrey Walker
Credit:
Putney
The studio will blur “the lines between ideation, execution, entertainment, marketing—all of that,” said Tom O’Keefe, OKRP founder and CEO, speaking at Ad Age’s Small Agency Conference on Wednesday. “It has an attitude, it has a point of view and it’s an opportunity to bring in more talent.”
The agency is starting with an equity investment from OKRP. Robinson and Walker are Putney's majority owners.
Putney takes its name from the 1969 satirical movie “Putney Swope,” in which the sole Black executive at an advertising agency unintentionally winds up leading the company.
Robinson’s previous work in Hollywood helped inform the new company’s working model.
Putney “can be a new agency model in terms of how we think about talent,” Robinson said at the conference, calling it a “fluid” approach where talent is brought in with each new project.
Aubrey Walker and Elena Robinson
Credit:
Putney
At its launch, Putney is 60% Black. OKRP is 24% Black and 37% BIPOC, according to data provided by the agency.
Putney will bill OKRP and can pursue separate clients, although it likely won’t “go hard in that direction,” said Robinson.
The new company follows the work an internal group at OKRP has been doing—particularly following the 2020 murder of George Floyd—to elevate the Black community. In 2020, the group created Black Shop Friday, a 501(c)(3) organization that supports and connects Black-owned stores and other businesses, encouraging people to “Shop Black” on Black Friday. Target supported the initiative in 2021. There are plans to continue Black Shop Friday this year.
“Our vision with Putney is to deliver dope creativity through work that represents our culture,” Walker said in a statement. “Black Shop Friday proved that by harnessing the power of our voices, we could change minds and move people to action. We know there is demand for a culturally fluent agency that runs on ideas and influence and that is what we are building at Putney.”
OKRP also co-founded the BLAC internship program.
