Quirk Creative is ready for the next chapter. After over a decade years in business, the boutique advertising agency – operating from New York and with presence in Guadalajara and Paris – has a fresh new look and it’s a way of reminding the industry what it stands for: campaigns that live beyond video; cinematic quality achieved via speed and value; and guaranteed results. The agency has successfully tested its methodology for clients like Ruggable, Lume, Babbel, Blue Apron, Bonafide, and Harry’s, picking up industry accolades along the way.

“We're honestly jazzed to be at the ten year mark, given the majority of independent agencies don't make it to five,” says co-founder Meryl Draper. Yet longevity has been part of Quirk’s DNA since the agency began. “A decade ago, Gaelan [Draper, co-founder] and I recognised that the old way of making campaigns and ads was just that – old. Outdated. Slow. And not built for the fast-moving startups that were all around us,” Meryl reflects.

A Future-proof Model

Quirk was launched while Meryl and Gaelan were living in Silicon Valley, modelling the agency after the agile startup methodology that was around them. Meryl says it was a “hunch that it would help us future-proof our agency and add value to brand partners for years to come.”

“We were right, and here we are ten years later,” she continues. Quirk’s rebrand isn’t about change, per se. It’s about rearticulating what it does well and how it does it; why the methodology it launched with still works. “It feels like the right moment to both celebrate and make sure that we're showing up in a way that's reflective of today's business environment and brand needs.” The visual aspect of the rebrand is then about “bringing our internal structures and the feeling of working with Quirk to life. It's firstly a visual articulation of our 'hardworking' mentality – how we make work that works hard for our clients through simple and effective processes,” says Gaelan.

One of the main aspects Quirk wants the industry to know is “what we've learned over a decade of making video ads that work. We know what performs. Our work has driven billions in sales and value for our clients. Our rebrand puts that expertise front and centre, highlights our cross-channel capabilities (linear TV, social, digital, streaming, OOH) and most importantly, celebrates what's to come for us and our clients over the next ten years,” Meryl says.

Commitment to Diversity

A philosophy fundamental to Quirk’s ethos is the belief in and a commitment to a multiplicity of perspectives, having seen time and time again how it leads to better outcomes for everyone. “As a woman-owned agency we've always believed in the value of diverse perspectives for making memorable, effective ads. It's not rocket science: in a country as diverse as the United States, with consumers as diverse as our friends and families, having a diversity of people shaping creative just makes sense.”

The commitment stretches to Quirk’s roster, ensuring that diversity and representation happens at every agency layer. “We know that only 7-10% of directors on the rosters of major commercial production houses are women; we're stoked that the majority of our commercial directors are women. It's one of the reasons we work with so many femhealth brands: those clients want to know that their consumers' perspectives are being integrated into the work at a foundational level,” explains Meryl.

Beyond representation at the agency, Quirk is passionate about improving access to the world of production and filmmaking and in 2021 it launched the Quirk-Key programme, facilitating exposure to the production industry for up-and-coming diverse professionals in the New York and the tri-state area. “We partnered with local colleges to provide a select diverse group with on-set shadowing experiences to learn about key roles performed on a production set. As paid production assistants, participants gained exposure to real commercial productions and sets, were able to shadow and interact with various on-set and agency roles and build their resume as they did it.”

The Full Package

Quirk stands apart from many agencies by offering creative and production under one roof, with in-house directors and post. Being involved from concept through delivery gives the team and the client a level of control that’s otherwise near impossible to achieve. Meryl sees two reasons why the model really works. “First, owning every part of the process gives us tighter creative control and oversight from start to finish. We've all worked with or at those agencies that bid out production, and suddenly you've got an external commercial director with their crew calling shots on a project without being fully ingrained with the client or agency team from the jump,” Gaelan says, pointing to how this is can often lead to a mismatch between idea and execution. With Quirk’s approach, “our clients love that the vision they sign off on in the beginning is what they get at the end.”

“Secondly, it's just an efficiency thing. Having everything in-house means we have way more flexibility to pull levers and make creative within a certain budget or timeframe constraint. We just have less markup, everyone's on staff!”

Quirk’s model means there’s not a prescriptive approach to how the agency works and “the beauty of it,” Gaelan explains, “is that we can actually embed ourselves wherever clients need in the process.”

The majority of Quirk’s clients need the agency from campaign ideation and platform development all the way through to execution like for last year’s work with Blue Apron. That resulted in the brand relaunch campaign announcing Blue Apron moving away from the meal kit space – the brand’s core offering – entirely. “How do you tell everyone that the brand that invented meal kit subscriptions is stepping away from meal kit subscriptions?” asks Meryl. “It required a lot of upfront strategic thinking, understanding how existing customers were using the product, and understanding why non-users didn't want to. We realised even the folks who did subscribe could see the insanity of subscription culture that's permeated our day-to-day existence. Every single seemingly-ludicrous example that we used in the campaign was inspired by real-life tech – did you know BMW wants you to subscribe to seat warmers?”

“The point is that we were completely immersed in the entire experience, from soup to nuts, with our client team on that project,” explains Gaelan. “But on the flip side, we're nimble enough and have production under one roof, we're able to come in for pure production, post-production, or localisation requests as well. For example, we have several long-time clients who tap us for our ability to transform their terabytes of existing footage and hard drives collecting dust into new, effective ads.”

Historically, Quirk has had a reputation for being ‘fast and cost-effective’. The agency stands by it, with Meryl noting “It's important to know that cost-effectiveness can happen at any budget with any brief. The point is that we're delivering outsized value across multiple metrics by making our clients' dollars go further – in any scope, of any shape and size.” For Quirk, there’s no reason why high standards of craft can’t be delivered on quickly and at different budgets; after all, the team has been doing it for over a decade now.

Next Chapter

Continuing to nurture a strong creative culture is one of the focuses for Quirk’s next chapter. Already it’s “rooted in autonomy and ownership,” Meryl says, adding “our in-house commercial directors lead projects from kick-off onwards, so you can imagine that there's a lot of trust in our team that they know what they're talking about when it comes to making killer creative ads.”

Attracting talent is a priority for Quirk and Meryl and Gaelan believe the agency is a great home for ambitious potential hires. “We're a dream come true for people with an innate desire to make things, who dream big but have the scrappy nature to make it come to life. Folks pursuing a career that allows them creativity and autonomy will thrive at Quirk.”

With a new website launching Quirk’s refreshed positioning, Meryl and Gaelan are ready to harness the momentum and channel it into considered growth. “We're excited to expand our roster of clients looking for work that works,” Meryl and Gaelan conclude. “Ultimately, Quirk is a small business, so we inherently understand the need for our clients to see value and return from the campaigns they entrust to us. We're looking forward to partnering with more brands that share this viewpoint with us.”