R/GA elevates Shannon Washington to U.S. CCO of its largest practice
Washington joined R/GA in 2020 and led creative for R/GA’s New York office under its previous agency model.
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Washington previously served as senior VP, group executive creative director at R/GA, a role that won’t be filled, according to an agency spokesman. She was also the head of creative of R/GA’s New York office prior to the new model. Since joining the Interpublic Group of Cos. agency in 2020 she has led creative for clients such as the Ad Council, Google, Sephora, Samsung, and Uber.
Currently, R/GA’s Connected Communications practice, a division focused on creativity that has a media and technology focus, makes up about 50% of the agency’s business, according to Rolfe. R/GA’s Health practice and studio also sit within the communications division. Among the work turned out by the practice in the past is Reddit's “Superb Owl” regional Super Bowl ad and Sephora's “Black Beauty is Beauty,” according to an agency spokesman.
“Connected communications to me is where we take the very best that is out there for the community that we are talking to, and we figure out a way to piece it together in a way that's not only effective and memorable, but it feels like it is tailored to what they need,” Washington said. “Going beyond just a 30-second spot and saying, 'What's a way that we can involve some interesting uses of media, some interesting uses of sound, some interesting uses of technology so that it becomes more than just another commercial.'”
Washington said the restructuring is already making a difference for R/GA. “I've seen the impact of the move almost instantaneously since about October and having new faces in the room and clients just saying, 'I didn't know you had all these people here,'” Washington said. “New York was one thing and it was the largest office, but there's heat in Atlanta, there's heat in Austin, there's heat in California, there's heat in Portland that we've been able to put under one roof and people are excited.”
Earlier this year Washington was part of a documentary called “Black Madison Ave” that featured seven Black executive creative directors dissecting the lack of diverse representation in creative executive roles in the ad industry. Since then, several members of the documentary have been promoted to chief roles within the industry.
In April, Walter T Geer III was promoted to chief experience design officer at VMLY&R Health. In July, Andre Gray was hired as CCO of Havas’ Annex88 and Kaleeta McDade was hired as VMLY&R’s North America chief experience design officer. In October, Perry Fair was promoted to CCO, global head of entertainment at McCann.
Washington says the circle of Black chief creatives in the industry is still very small but is worth noting.
“We're all navigating things that our predecessors didn't have to navigate in a lot of ways,” Washington said. “And we're doing it through a cultural lens that wasn't really done before.”
R/GA’s new structure
Rolfe said that 80% of the agency’s work under the old model was being done by people from two or three different offices. While each practice will have its own identity, Rolfe said her role is also making sure each practice works together. “I'm there to think about and ensure that we're connecting the dots, because where I think where R/GA has its magic is especially at the intersections of all of those practices, that they're not siloed, that all these things kind work together,” Rolfe said.
Rolfe said there aren’t immediate plans to name chief creative officers for the other practices within R/GA and that any future decisions depend on “size and scale” as the agency starts thinking about how this new model could potentially be implemented globally. “There will probably be more news to come as we keep evolving on the model,” Rolfe said.
R/GA recently announced its New York and San Francisco office spaces will shut down on Dec. 23. R/GA will be opening a new office space in New York in 2023.
