A month before Thanksgiving, Ocean Spray unleashed the most peculiarly enjoyable commercial of the 2022 holiday season. It featured a cast of characters sitting glumly around a holiday table, who, when served cranberry jelly by the host, suddenly erupt in paroxysms of spasmodic euphoria.

The spot was courtesy of the agency Orchard and its notoriously unconventional chief creative officer, David Kolbusz, who arrived the previous spring after nearly seven years at Droga5 London.

In less than a year, Kolbusz (who succeeded Co-Founder Jeff Kling) has already invigorated the agency’s creative product, not just on Ocean Spray but for other brands, including Foot Locker’s Champs Sports—whose “Win Better” campaign is livelier and more unexpected than most work in the sports retail category.

Orchard, also led by CEO Barney Robinson and Chief Strategy Officer Laura Janness, boosted revenue 47% to more than $20 million last year, which it credits largely to the arrival of Kolbusz, who helped pitch and win new assignments including Google Fi, Google Small Business and Two Good yogurt. (Other clients include Oikos, Silk and Dashlane.) 

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The agency says talent recruitment has gotten easier and morale has improved as well, as Kolbusz reunited with a number of senior creative staff who knew each other from Droga and Wieden+Kennedy. The agency also rebranded in 2022 from Lightning Orchard to simply Orchard, centering its ambitions around the theme of growth.

Orchard's overarching philosophy is to be highly creative yet effective with work made to move product, not win awards. Indeed, the agency had a policy not to enter award shows at all, preferring to use the money to fund its diversity program—though it did recently break that rule to enter the widely admired Ocean Spray work.

That diversity program is part of another key goal—making a meaningful impact on the community at large. The agency said it’s invested more than $2 million (in hard costs and labor costs) into diversity initiatives since its 2019 founding.

They include the creation of a program to train at-risk BIPOC youth for careers in the communication arts. (In another effort to promote diversity, the agency claims all female employees are paid equal to, or more than, their male peers.)

Orchard’s momentum has continued into 2023, with the agency making another Super Bowl spot for Oikos (a regional and streaming buy) shot by Prettybird director Calmatic, and crafting a next-generation milk-mustache campaign for Silk’s Nextmilk, featuring kids of the celebs from the originals.

As the agency’s culture improves, it’s indulging in one other passion—fine art. Kolbusz, Robinson and Janness are all contemporary art junkies, and they plan to launch their own art gallery, Orchard Galleries, in 2023.

Look for cranberry cocktails at the opening.

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