Why Wasserman is merging its creative agency teams

Sports, music and entertainment talent agency Wasserman is consolidating its creative agencies to form a creative services group to be known as Wasserman. The new unit will encompass Laundry Service and its influencer agency Cycle, the creative division of CSM Sport & Entertainment (which was renamed Wasserman in 2024), lifestyle agency trevor//peter and the in-house creative team from Wasserman’s talent practice. The group, which will have more than 300 employees, will be led by Chief Creative Officer Danny Nunez and Executive VP, Global Creative and Content Alan Palmer. The change eradicates the name Laundry Service, which is the most notable agency in the group. The shop, founded in 2008 and acquired by Wasserman in 2015, has worked with clients such as Netflix, Jordan Brand, BodyArmor and Amazon. Ad Age Small Agency Awards Showcase your agency’s creativity, business success and commitment to a thriving workplace. Enter today Laundry Service was also embroiled in a public legal dispute with Papa John’s founder John Schnatter regarding a 2018 incident involving a racial slur. The status of the case, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Louisville, was unclear at deadline. Nunez was formerly CCO of Laundry Service. Palmer was promoted to that role within Wasserman’s brands and properties division a year ago and tasked with figuring out how the different creative entities within the division could be integrated into one team. The combined entity will count among its clients Gatorade, GE, Google, Jordan Brand, Meta, MLB and Taco Bell. Behind the rollup The logic behind the rollup is to offer clients broader creative services than “traditional creatively driven shops,” said Nunez, who maintains that Wasserman’s connection with talent will give it a competitive edge. The plan is to connect brands with talent while using those ties to help Wasserman build creative output for brands, or even to involve the talent agency’s roster of clients in creative services pitches. “One thing that we’ve been discussing is, how can we better leverage our talent, whether that be from the standpoint of featuring them in an ad or a campaign, but also a lot of these talents are creatives themselves and are into photography, content or producing music,” Nunez said. “So, what does it look like to actually hire them as a freelance creative director or as a freelance senior writer and give them a seat at the table?” For example, Nunez said Wasserman is currently working on a TV campaign for March Madness and asked a college athlete to give feedback on a script to ensure its authenticity. The entertainment world has increasingly become more involved in the advertising space, either through helping brands create original IP or celebrities launching agencies. There have also been agencies built through Hollywood roots such as Panay Films, which was founded by producer Andrew Panay, and a recent increase in agencies launching entertainment practices. Brands have also worked with celebrities as creative directors. Puma Basketball, Luis Vuitton and Playboy brought on Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, and Cardi B, respectively, as creative directors in recent years. Food chain Krystal tapped rapper 2 Chainz as its creative head of marketing in 2022, and Lady Gaga was even once a creative director at Polaroid. Wasserman needs to educate potential clients about its new integrated team and capabilities, ensuring it isn’t stereotyped as solely a representation agency or as a creative agency, Nunez said. Combining services is meant to offer a full-service marketing solution while eliminating silos that previously divided various creative teams. Such a setup may help lead to winning agency of record accounts, but Nunez emphasized that isn’t the company’s main goal. Rather, he said, the group will be focused on helping brands with culturally relevant work. “It’s one thing to be a great social-first agency … but it’s another thing to maximize our capabilities, our client relationships and the ability to collaborate on different functional expertise to present a unified product to the marketplace,” he said.

Why Wasserman is merging its creative agency teams

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