Booms & Shakes: June's hires, launches and the studios rethinking themselves

Welcome back to Booms & Shakes, our monthly round-up of the hires, promotions, launches and wins making noise across the creative world right now.

A few patterns jumped out of the inbox this rainy June. Half the industry seems to be hiring a head of strategy. "Social-first" studios are building empires. And after May's run of agencies redrawing their own identities, this month we've got the opposite instinct: a studio that decided the best thing it could do for its brand was let another team loose on it.

Read on for who's moving, who's launching, and who's worth keeping half an eye on. It's been quite the busy one.

Story of the month

The studio that let someone else do its rebrand

Ok, first things first. Most studios, when the time comes for a refresh, do it themselves. It's cheaper, on-brand, and, frankly, a nice break from client work. We've watched plenty go down that route lately. So we were impressed by a studio that went the other way.

As it approached its 20th year, 3D and moving-image studio Bolder Creative decided that a proper reset deserved an outside eye and brought in creative studio Monday Nights to do the thinking. If the name rings a bell, Monday Nights is the team we featured last summer for its work on the football game CLUB.

Bolder handed over full creative freedom from day one, and, by Monday Nights' account, the two teams discovered they shared the same belief that good design doesn't need to be wrapped in serious language or a complicated process. Bolder admits it was unusual going on the kind of journey it usually guides its own clients through, which must be a peculiar feeling for any studio used to running the room. They seemed to enjoy being on the other side, though and couldn't resist taking the new brand for a spin in 3D, producing some suitably outrageous animations for the case study.

The new identity is due to land this month. We rather like the principle behind it: sometimes the most confident thing a studio can do is admit it's too close to see itself clearly.

Hires and promotions

Method1 names Jodi Heelan as CEO

New York behavioural-science agency Method1, which builds its work around "indulgence" brands across spirits, drinks and the wider CPG world, has appointed Jodi Heelan as chief executive. Heelan arrives after more than a decade at The Variable, latterly as president, where she helped steer the shop to five Ad Age Small Agency of the Year nods.

Founder MichaelAaron Flicker reckons she understands how creativity, operations and business performance fit together in a way few agency leaders do, and given the brief is to build a more modern, scalable model, that's the right thing to be good at.

ByDESIGN appoints Christian Murphy as global CEO

Architecture and design media brand ByDESIGN has named Christian Murphy as its global chief executive as it pushes further into broadcast, streaming and branded content. Murphy, known across the industry as "Murph", brings close to three decades in international television and content, much of it at A+E Global after he moved from Australia to the US in 2008. A media veteran taking the reins of a design-led brand makes for an interesting combo.

Landor keeps building, on both sides of the Atlantic

If May's WPP Brand & Design restructure told you branding was back at the top of the agenda, Landor is making sure you don't forget it. The consultancy has appointed Alana Eversole as global EVP, experience, and promoted Ryan Frost to global executive creative director.

Eversole returns from Jones Knowles Ritchie, a "boomerang" in Landor's own affectionate phrasing, having already spent more than a decade in the business. Her newly created role pulls together Landor's work across retail, hospitality, events, spatial and immersive design into a single experience offering, the argument being that "in a fragmented, increasingly AI-shaped world, physical and sensory brand moments matter more, not less".

Frost, meanwhile, has spent nearly two decades at Landor across London, Singapore and New York, and steps up to help shape creative direction globally alongside the existing roster of ECDs. Two more signs that the category sees "experience" and "craft" as its growth engine.

M+C Saatchi Talk brings in Pete Harrison

M+C Saatchi Talk has appointed Pete Harrison as managing partner as it enters its 25th year. He joins on the back of a busy run for the agency, following the arrivals of managing director Amaya Alvarez and head of brand PR and influence Callum Powell. Harrison has close to two decades of experience across the UK, the US and Asia-Pacific, with roles at EVH, Salesforce and NBCUniversal, and lands at what the agency calls its "culture-first story-making" proposition. He'll also co-chair the group's Proud employee-led network in the UK.

BBC Studios Digital Brands hires Lindsay Turner, with the numbers to back it up

BBC Studios Digital Brands, home to the likes of Bluey, Doctor Who, BBC Earth and Top Gear on YouTube, has appointed Lindsay Turner as VP digital growth and strategy to lead its advertising and commercial partnerships.

For background, the business has held the number-one spot for YouTube watch time in its global competitor set for a second year running, with watch time up 60% year on year to 2.1 billion hours, and branded content growing a frankly startling 124%.

Turner joins from VCCP Media, where she was managing director, with earlier stops at LADbible Group, Spark Foundry and Blue 449. When the platform's already this big, the job is turning attention into revenue, and that's squarely her remit.

Ian Millner resurfaces at ZEAL and NewGen

After 26 years of building Iris Worldwide from a challenger to a global network, founder Ian Millner left in March, and the industry has been wondering where he'd go next. Well, all has been revealed as he's taken the chairman role at brand activation group ZEAL, become non-executive chairman of creator-economy agency NewGen, and joined marketing group MSQ as a non-executive director.

Three businesses, all firmly in growth mode. ZEAL, founded in Manchester in 2014, has been busy acquiring social studio Tommy and launching shopper-PR shop Joe Public; NewGen runs across London, Manchester, New York and Paris. Millner will keep advising Iris in a global capacity, too, so he's hardly stepping back.

Born Social promotes Simon Cooper to ECD

Social-first agency Born Social has promoted Simon Cooper to the newly created role of executive creative director. Cooper joined in 2024 to lead the Ford account, and his back catalogue is impressive: Ford's "The Legend Is Back" Capri reveal, Spotify Wrapped 2022, the Puma Gen-E launch and "The Internet Takeover" with Dan and Phil for BBC Radio 1.

He'll report to chief creative officer Paddy Smith, who's relocated to the US to grow the agency's presence over there, and lead a team of 22 creatives. Part of a wider leadership build-out that also saw Alex Green made UK head of growth.

JOAN London adds Nicky Vita as head of strategy

JOAN London has appointed Nicky Vita, previously of Atomic London, as head of strategy. She follows close behind Gerry Graf, who was named global chief creative officer earlier this month. Vita started in planning at TBWA in Johannesburg before taking on London roles at BBH (where she rose to partner) and VCCP, working on clients such as Primark, LinkedIn and O2, and arrives with awards from the IPA, The Drum and the Marketing Society in tow.

The female-founded agency, which has been in London only since 2023, counts eBay, Ancestry and TOTM among its clients. Vita's own verdict on the move was endearingly honest: excited, she says, but also "terrified, nervous, delighted, optimistic".

Pearlfisher names Christina Papale head of strategy in New York

Independent brand design agency Pearlfisher has appointed Christina Papale as head of strategy for its New York studio, with a brief to bring strategy, insight and creative closer together.

Papale brings more than 20 years of experience across food and drink, health and wellness, retail, spirits, and beauty, most recently running her own consultancy, Verboten Group, and, before that, 12 years at CBX. She describes her approach as "intrapreneurial", which is a different way of saying she likes working out what a brand needs next before it thinks to ask.

More movers

A clutch of other moves worth a mention. Spin, last year's Social Media Agency of the Year at the Europe Agency Awards, has hired George David as group commercial director, joining from Havas-owned Wilderness to drive growth across Spin and its sister brands Be A Bear and Tiny Studios, off the back of pitch wins including Fortnum & Mason, Five Guys and National Rail.

Creative agency Hijinks has appointed Chris Willis, formerly of Fake Empires, as design director, bolstering its brand design work following projects for Fulham Pier and Vue. And in New York, next-generation studio Versus has hired the duo of Rosie Garschina (executive creative director) and Kevin Anderson (executive producer) from Trollbäck+Company to deepen its brand and design practice.

Elsewhere, global studio Builders Club has appointed Matt Shannon as executive producer and head of partnerships, bringing experience with Apple, Netflix, Burberry and Rolex to its push into luxury, fashion and tech. Youth marketing agency Raptor, celebrating its 10th year, has promoted group account director Molly Chappin to its board.

GentleForces has expanded its leadership as it turns five, naming Mike Keen as finance director and founding team member Jordanna Andrews as futures practice lead, alongside international wins with Shinola and Kate Spade.

And last but not least, at Fluid Ideas in Derby, Dani Berzins and Sarah Bowler have become the agency's first new shareholders in seven years, exercising EMI share options to step up to partner and co-owner, a lovely example of an agency following through on a progression path.

SomeBrightSpark moves to a partner-led model

Independent agency SomeBrightSpark has restructured around a partner-led model with two appointments. George Guildford joins as partner and executive creative director from Moshi, tasked with growing the agency's film, production and social-first work, while client services director Ellie Anderson has been promoted to partner after 13 years at the agency.

Founded in 2008 and working with the likes of Caterpillar, Volkswagen Financial Services and Pinterest, the agency is making the case, as MD Daniel Rogers puts it, that studios outside London can compete creatively at the very highest level. Hard to argue with that, given we're doing alright here in Manchester.

Launches and new ventures

M+C Saatchi UK launches Social House

M+C Saatchi UK has launched Social House, a new practice that folds social strategy, creator and community work, content production, paid media, commerce and measurement into a single offer. The thinking is that social has stopped being a channel and become a whole cultural ecosystem, the place people discover what they love and decide what to buy, so it deserves to be treated as a discipline in its own right.

It's built on the group's proprietary "Fancom Accumulator" methodology, and brings in Katy Ball from Hope&Glory as head of social communications, with Shanice Dover promoted to associate director, creator and community.

Tracks & Fields opens in London

Berlin-founded music intelligence and operations company Tracks & Fields has opened a London office, with former Superunion and Siegel+Gale leader Mark Mullooly as managing director for the UK. The pitch is an insightful one: as campaigns sprawl across more markets, platforms and rights environments, the music decisions get complicated fast, and brands tend to leave them too late. Since 2008, the company has handled more than €100m in music licensing and artist partnerships for the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Aldi and Zalando, and London joins its offices in Berlin, Warsaw and Tokyo.

Akcelo lands in London

Brand experience and innovation company Akcelo has opened its first permanent London office, in Farringdon, as part of what it calls a "borderless" model. Founded in Australia in 2020, the agency works with TikTok, PepsiCo, Amazon, OpenAI and Anytime Fitness, and the London team, led by Ben Phillips, Jade Fonteneau, Mike Gethin and Justin Schoenmaker, is the first proper on-the-ground presence in a region it has so far served from afar. Plans are to add 10 to 20 staff over the next year or so.

Glass Productions opens its doors in the North West

A nice one for the regions. Photographer Georgie Glass has launched Glass Productions, a food and drink creative production agency, alongside Glass Studio, a fully kitted-out dual-kitchen studio space in Cheshire. With 13 years in food and drink and a client list that includes HarperCollins and PepsiCo brands such as Quaker Oats, Glass is betting on the North West's appetite for better visual content. The studio is now open for bookings, so give her a shout.

Six Dundee studios share a roof at Hapworks

We've got a real soft spot for this one. Six Dundee creative organisations, spanning design, games, culture, research and civic innovation, have come together to launch Hapworks Studios, a shared workspace above The Bach café on Albert Square. Agency of None, Biome Collective, Bit Loom, Creative Dundee, tialt and Very Evil Demons now share the space, home to more than 25 people.

It came together partly by accident, after a flood forced Agency of None to move just as the others were grappling with rising rents, but the principle is deliberate: at a time when independent studios are being priced out of city centres across the UK, here's a group choosing to invest collectively in shared infrastructure rather than going it alone. A small, practical answer to a problem a lot of cities are currently wrestling with.

Partnerships and wins

McCann London wins Mindful Chef

McCann London has been appointed agency of record by recipe box service Mindful Chef following a competitive pitch, and is building a new brand platform to launch in the autumn. It's the brand's biggest marketing investment to date, led by recently appointed CMO Mary Rochester Gearing, with the line that Mindful Chef isn't really about convenient meals but about making food a positive force in how people feel. McCann's deputy ECDs Charlotte Prince and Loriley Sessions called it a dream brief, which, for a team that presumably likes eating well, checks out.

Born Ugly wins LHV Bank

Leeds independent Born Ugly has secured a three-year partnership with LHV Bank to build its brand platform and run integrated campaigns for the savings-focused retail bank. Of the brief put before them, Head of Strategy Clare Deacon says that with low brand awareness in the UK, the real risk for LHV isn't rejection, it's being ignored, so the work is about meaning before scale.

Havas Miami named by Olive Oils from Spain

Havas Miami has won a three-year, US-wide brief from Olive Oils from Spain, the trade body for Spain's olive oil industry, with the first work due in July. It's more category-building than campaign: the US is about to become the world's biggest consumer of extra virgin olive oil, and the job is to move Spanish olive oil from pantry staple to cultural fixture across food, wellness and modern cooking. ECD Federico Hauri, fresh from co-founding studio MULTI, calls it a dream assignment.

Wonderhood Design picked by VIEVE

Wonderhood Design has been appointed by makeup brand VIEVE, founded by makeup artist Jamie Genevieve, to lead a full brand strategy, identity and packaging project following a competitive pitch back in February. With a community of more than three million followers and fresh investment behind it, VIEVE wants to scale into a next-generation British beauty brand without losing the artistry-led, real-world feel that built it. Wonderhood's job is to bottle that.

Uncovered to lead ClearScore's global social

Social-first agency Uncovered has been appointed by ClearScore to lead its global paid social creative strategy across the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The move is part of ClearScore's shift from scattered local activations to a single, globally aligned model run through its UK HQ. Uncovered apparently won it by balancing global consistency with genuine local nuance, the typical tightrope of any multi-market brief.

Iris London takes on WillPowders

Iris London has won performance nutrition brand WillPowders, founded by Davinia Taylor and Matthew Leyden, after a three-way pitch, and will lead the launch of its new sport range and summer product, Electro Ice. It's WillPowders' first appointment of its kind, and Iris's social and influence lead Melo Meacher-Jones describes the brand exactly as you'd hope an agency would describe a new client: "one with a genuine point of view and the nerve to back it".

Gung Ho lands DELSEY Paris

Independent creative collective Gung Ho has been named DELSEY Paris's retained UK PR agency, just as the French luggage brand marks its 80th anniversary and rolls out a new "Designed to move you" platform. Gung Ho, which recently passed 20 years of its own "truth told boldly" ethos, will handle UK press, influence and activations. A heritage brand and a bold-by-name agency are, at least, a promising duo.

BigSmall partners War Child UK

Brand strategy studio BigSmall has been appointed as brand strategy partner for War Child UK, following a competitive pitch. The idea is that it will help sharpen how the charity tells its story. With more than 520 million children worldwide affected by conflict, the work is about clarity rather than relevance. As BigSmall's Lucy Taylor puts it, when a cause is this important, you need one idea people can understand instantly and act on immediately.

Milestones and good news

Distant Future Animation makes the shortlist

A well-earned nod for a small team. Yorkshire studio Distant Future Animation has been shortlisted at the 2026 Prolific North Creative Awards, in the Excellence in Creative Craft category, for Maritime Connected, a film made with Lloyd's Register Foundation.

The brief was to explain why maritime safety matters far beyond shipping, and the studio, just three people, deliberately avoided Western-centric storytelling, using culturally diverse characters and a non-Western voiceover to make a complex global subject land emotionally in under 90 seconds. It premiered in September 2025 and has since reached audiences in more than 40 countries. A great example that you don't need a big team to create something brilliant.

One for the diary

The Prolific North Creative Awards are handed out on 25 June in Manchester, so we'll find out then how Distant Future gets on. And the big one, of course, is the 73rd Cannes Lions, running 22 to 26 June. Expect the inbox, and next month's Booms & Shakes, to be heaving with it.

Key takeaways

Step back from June, and a few threads spring to mind. Firstly, everyone wants a strategist. Pearlfisher, JOAN London and GentleForces all named strategy leads this month, and Born Ugly's winning argument for LHV was strategic. After a long stretch of "performance-first thinking", agencies are clearly reinvesting in the bit that comes before the campaign: working out what a brand is actually for.

Secondly, social-first has matured. M+C Saatchi's Social House, Spin's commercial hire, Born Social's new ECD, Uncovered's global ClearScore win and Iris taking on WillPowders all point in the same direction. After all this time, social is no longer a channel an agency bolts on; it's now the discipline around which the whole offering is built.

And finally, it's reassuring to see so many upbeat news stories despite the economic uncertainty and gloom. Six Dundee studios sharing a roof rather than being priced out one by one. A three-person animation team reaching 40 countries. Two long-servers at Fluid Ideas are finally getting their names on the door. None of these win a prize for the biggest move of the month, but they're the ones that remind you why this industry is worth writing about in the first place.