BBH USA finds its groove through new client wins and breakthrough work

The road to the A-List has been full of zigs and zags for BBH. London-based BBH was down to only two clients in the U.S. before the Publicis Groupe-owned shop merged its Los Angeles and New York offices, creating BBH USA in 2021. The holding company continued to invest in the U.S., adding staff and executives, and the new entity was named an Ad Age Standout Agency the following year. Then came a dizzying raft of executive changes. Amani Duncan, BBH USA’s CEO, left less than a year after assuming the title. Instead of directly replacing Duncan, the agency named two new leaders: President Agnes Fischer and Chief Strategy Officer Alan Stout—both of whom left within two years. Steven Panariello was appointed CEO in July 2024. See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here Those rapid-fire changes left the industry questioning whether the initial momentum was a fluke. Could BBH USA sustain and expand on its success? It’s proven to be the latter. Under its current leadership—including Chief Creative Officer Erica Roberts, Chief Marketing Officer Lindsey McNabb Hover and Chief Strategy Officer Samantha Deevy—BBH USA has not only grown but has also become a key piece of the pitching puzzle for Publicis. Transforming the agency In 2024, BBH USA’s revenue grew 15% and it added 10 new clients, including Grey Goose, Patrón, PayPal, Samsung Mobile USA, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Hostess, A1RWATER, Verily, and March for Our Lives. The agency also launched 30 campaigns for clients including Café Bustelo and Goodyear’s Cooper Tires. The agency grew headcount 12% to 150 employees while maintaining a diverse staff of 40% people of color and 60% female employees. Panariello—who worked with McNabb Hover and Deevy in the past—said the agency’s transformation began with Roberts’ appointment. When Roberts first joined, she said the agency “lacked process” because certain roles weren’t filled. Now, the leadership team has gelled and the shop has focused on raising its profile and building its new business pipeline. “The industry has gone through such a massive transformation since COVID,” McNabb Hover said. “You’ve seen a rise of independents, but from a BBH perspective, we are a bit of a black sheep when it comes to the agency landscape. We are a fiercely creative agency that’s independently spirited … and we’re backed by a powerful holding company that allows us to touch resources if and when we need them.” Last year the agency added four executive creative directors, three new group account directors and three new group planning directors. These hires freed up the senior staff to focus on growing the agency. ‘Reinventing icons’ Part of that growth has come from BBH USA stepping up under Publicis’ “Power of One” model, becoming a lead creative resource in the holding company’s pitches. A recent example is PayPal. “PayPal came in and the request was to put forward the most creative response that Groupe could. They came to us, and we ended up winning,” Roberts said. The campaign stars Will Ferrell using PayPal to pay for items while rapturously singing a version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere,” and included social videos starring Ferrell. PayPal CMO Geoff Seeley said the brief he gave BBH USA was to help put “the brand back on the map.” “We’re in the business of ensuring that people know that PayPal is still the safest, easiest, most rewarding way to pay,” Seeley said. “The task given BBH was, ‘How do we tell that story through the lens of the products that we’ve got and the new products that we’re bringing to market?‘” Seeley said, adding, “They’re brilliant thought partners.” The overall campaign led to a 63% year-over-year increase in search for PayPal, and it generated app install rates 48% above benchmarks, according to the agency. The campaign also garnered 3 billion impressions and more than 893 million video views with 83% brand and message recall. Roberts said the agency has leaned into its strength of “reinventing big icons” as an approach to client work. One of its biggest swings of the year was when a tech giant made a public misstep. When Apple’s “Crush” ad went viral for the backlash it received, BBH USA proactively pitched an idea to create a response video for Samsung. At the time the agency was in the middle of negotiating its new AOR contract with Samsung Mobile USA. In just a few days, BBH USA was able to create a video that included a recreation of the set from Apple’s ad. Apple’s marketers “rarely misstep … so when they fumbled, you had to pick up the ball and run down the field,” Roberts said. “When you think of a quick-turn response, usually craft falls by the wayside, but I think the fact that [Samsung’s response] was executed so impeccably is what surprised everybody as well.” BBH also released other videos later in the year taking shots at Apple. One video showed Jaden Smith taking pictures and videos of an apple to demonstrate that a Samsung Galaxy phone can do more with an apple than Apple. Another video featured anonymous former Apple Genius Bar workers confessing that they now own Samsung Galaxy phones. The campaigns led to a 27% surge in Samsung purchase consideration with Gen Z and a 213% increase in engagement rate in a quarter, the agency said. Comedically absurd BBH USA also leaned into the comedically absurd in multiple campaigns for Jif. Tasked with repositioning the peanut butter as a snack item, the agency called attention to the often-neglected celery stick on viewers’ plates during the Super Bowl. The agency did this by creating a PSA-style campaign that playfully urged people to “Save the Celery” by stuffing it with Jif. BBH also partnered with GoPuff to get Jif onto game-day spreads, targeting consumers already shopping for wings and celery in the two weeks leading up to the game. The campaign delivered a $2.58 return on advertising spend and a 2.61% increase in household penetration, the agency said. To promote Jif’s new chocolate peanut butter spread, BBH created a parody of a corporate merger in a spot starring J. Smith-Cameron, the actress who played Gerri Kellman in the HBO series “Succession.” The announcement of the “merger” between peanut butter and chocolate was rolled out like a typical corporate coupling through an article in The New York Times and a website including investor materials and bios of fake executives. Last year, BBH USA launched six new products and two collaborations for The J.M Smucker Co., which owns Jif. BBH acts as lead agency for the company as part of Publicis’ bespoke model for Smucker, whose chief marketing officer, Gail Hollander, praises BBH’s ability to blend strategy with creative. “Their ability to lead the other agencies [within the bespoke model] and get the best and the most out of them, but do it in a way that everything hangs together and everything builds on itself, is also part of their secret sauce,” said Hollander. Now that it’s on smooth pavement, Panariello said BBH USA is hitting the gas by building its capabilities in design and social. “We’re rewriting a new chapter for evolving BBH’s legacy of reinventing icons,” he said, “and we’re doing the same thing for ourselves.” See all of Ad Age’s 2025 Agency A-List winners here

BBH USA finds its groove through new client wins and breakthrough work

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