nice&frank

To be frank, this is pretty nice. We’ve officially joined the AdAge A-List as Newcomer Agency of the Year. 16 months and counting. Big thanks, Ad Age. Even bigger thanks to our clients who helped us get here, we couldn’t have done it without you. #AdAgeAList

“How do they do it all?” Well, since you asked… We wouldn’t be where we are today without our incredibly talented band of freelancers over the last year. Creatives, strategists, producers, account folks, from near and far, a big nice&thanks to you each and every one of you. Caroline Cappelli | Brett Newman | Sai He | Nate Able | Reuben Hower | Prit Patel | Michael Kang | Michael Stone | Ronnie Allman 🎨 | Rebecca Russell | Lucy Sandwick | Sophie Lichtman | Andrew Bancroft | Ilana Wolstein | Rachel Ellam Goss | Brian Naujelis | Benton Roman | Dotun Bello | Ben Gallegos | Greg Donnelly | Jacob Wolfman | Luis Miranda | Sam Davidoff | Ben Grube | Katie Hull | Ben Mackie | Olivia Baker | Sarah Sweeney | Theophilus Wells IV | Heather LeFevre, CMT, CST-T | Sruti Dhulipala | Madalyn Urrutia Bates | Ray Yoes | Etienne Ma | Luke Davisson | Kyle Morais | Nick Marchese | Dany Babette Rothemund

Here's a harsh truth about learning to do old things in new ways. Since the start of nice&frank, Laura and I have been psychotically focused on making this a place where everyone feels safe enough to say their "quiet part loud." (A n&f-ism we call "QPL.") A place where no-matter-how-uncomfy honesty can bubble up in every convo, from people at every level of seniority. Last week, our fearless and badass president, Tamera Geddes (a.k.a. Taz a.k.a Tazzle a.k.a Tazzle Dazzle), mic-dropped this little gem on me, and it threw me for a loop. 🎤 “It takes a lot of unlearning to work here.” 🎤 What she meant was that learning to speak your truth, without fear, means unlearning a bunch of bad habits, expectations, and “this is how we do things around heres" that we picked up through the course of our careers. A lot of which we don’t even necessarily realize we’re carrying. It means unlearning: > The hierarchies that invisibly dictate *whose* truth matters most > The influence of power that shuts people up (i.e. the illusion of an open door) > The notion that it’s weak to raise your hand to ask for help > The idea that silence is a polite way to avoid conflict, when it’s often just kicking a very necessary conflict down the road > The fear that you’ll get in trouble for saying the thing that “no one wants to hear” (i.e. the fear of retaliation) > The apathy that your truth will be smiled at, ignored, or fall on deaf ears It makes sense that these learnings get ingrained, and we hold onto them to protect ourselves. They're porcupine spikes that help us survive. But they also close us off from our childlike "why don't we just do it this other way?" potential. So until we actively unlearn those things -- and, critically, build intentional spaces where you can safely unlearn them -- the idea of learning some utopian new ways of acting is actually... a bit of a farce. Anyone have anything they've unlearned (or need to unlearn) to make space for something better? Would love to hear what comes up.

Who has built a Connections/Comms Strat department from scratch? Would love to share notes and hear your horror and success stories. 👂 Because... nice&frank is doing that right now. ~ 👇 h/t Pablo Rochat ~

⚡️Last weekend to vote ⚡️ Help us get to SXSW to talk autonomous vehicles, therapy, and karaoke! Graham North, our Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, sits down with our partners at Zoox and Nonfiction Research to talk about “How therapy secrets & karaoke helped introduce Zoox’s robotaxi”. The panel will cover everything from wild research stories to the strategy and creative development behind Zoox’s new brand platform. Vote at the link in the comments. Karen Sorensen | Lindsey Wehking | Ishita Sharma | #SXSW | #SXSW2025 | #Zoox

🙏 Help us get to SXSW 🙏 by voting at the link in our comments, so we can share all the fun stories from a recent Nonfiction Research study about what people really want from autonomous vehicles. Our Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Graham North, will join our partners Zoox and Nonfiction Research at SXSW to chat about the brand’s revolutionary new strategy and creative platform. The panel, “How therapy secrets & karaoke helped introduce Zoox’s robotaxi” will cover everything from wild research stories, to the strategy and creative development behind the antonymous vehicle company’s new brand platform.
 #SXSW #SXSW2025 SXSW

Chelsea: Can make the perfect jammy eggs. Can’t whistle. Jared: Can perfectly fold a t-shirt. Can’t get with uni sushi. Together, they're our newest Senior Creative team and we love them for it. Welcome to the n&f crew, you two! We’re so thrilled to have you. 🤭🎉

Let’s get Zoox, Nonfiction Research and us (!) to roll up to SXSW 2025. Vote at the link in the comments to send our talk, “How Therapy Secrets & Karaoke Helped Introduce Zoox’s Robotaxi” to the SXSW stage. The talk will dive into new findings from an immersive study with Nonfiction Research and discuss how it led to the strategy that will introduce the robotaxi and creative campaign for Zoox. SXSW | Karen Sorensen | Graham North | Lindsey Wehking | Ishita Sharma #SXSW #SXSW2025

They’re nice. They’re frank. They’re Rob and Pat. Meet our new Creative Director team to join the squad! *Crowd goes wild* This is going to be fun. 👏👏👏 Don’t look away, we’ve got even more news coming soon. Rob Stone | Patrick Newman

Ad Age said “small independent creative agencies are having a moment.” We tend to agree 🙃 Read the full article featuring our latest Häagen-Dazs / Froneri partnership at the link below. Thanks Ewan Larkin for the write-up. 🖋