Director Jonty Toosey and Three Ex-WPPers Have Launched an Agency

NKD is a new strategic and creative offering launched by renowned film director, creative and Cannes Lions Speaker Jonty Toosey, and three ex WPP colleagues, Lee Williams, Max Jackson and Raj Jangra.

 

At the heart of NKD is the desire to challenge and change the old agency model - centred around its core mantra of Ideas not Layers. 

 

“I am so excited to build and unveil something so unique that solves many of the frustrations I - and am sure many clients - have experienced over the last few decades, with the old agency model: too many layers of people and costs getting in the way of doing great work that can transform brands,” said Jonty Toosey. “Our focus will be on producing fantastic film content and we are also able to precede this with brilliant ideas from pre-strategy through to creative and storytelling, if a project requires it.”

 

Max, an ex WPP CEO and founding partner at NKD, continued: “Our world has changed dramatically over recent years, so we want to get ahead of the curve and establish our business on providing great ideas across strategy, creative and tactical delivery. Mark Pritchard, P&G’s Chief Brand Officer has been challenging traditional network agencies to remove all the layers between clients and those doing the work in agencies, for the last few years. This is exactly what we have built NKD on.”

 

Lee Williams, another founding partner, added: “We have adopted this philosophy in terms of how we follow on from great strategic and creative ideas into production too. All the best campaigns I have been involved with  over the last couple of decades have been most successful when there has been a small core agency team and the film director and or photographer have been brought in from the start of the creative process - at the idea stage. In fact, this is how Jonty and I met and enjoyed working together before realising we had stumbled on to a new business offering that was pretty unique and current.”

 

“We’ve all seen that ‘pick 2 visual’ where traditionally, agencies have lectured clients about being able to only select two from ‘better’, ‘cheaper’, ‘faster’” said Raj. “Well, we’re going to provide all three – and frankly, this is the new age we find ourselves in. I went client side for a number of years and the expectation is we have to deliver all three! Clients simply want great quality work, delivered more quickly and more cost effectively than ever before. We will do this by reducing the many unnecessary overheads and distractions we all know exist in the old agency model.”

 

Jonty concluded: “All the NKD partners agree, having spent many years in the network agency world, that it’s time for a new, more direct and efficient agency model that focuses on great work while avoiding complicated hierarchies and cost structures. Clients deserve better solutions and value. This is long overdue and we aim to give it to them!”