Former Cossette Executives Launch Creative Agency Will

Will Creative Inc., simply known as Will, is a new agency in Vancouver founded in December 2014 by Nick Richards, previously VP creative director at Cossette, and Ute Preusse, previously VP strategic planning at Cossette.

After seven years, both left the top ranks of Cossette Vancouver and the national management team to pursue an agency model based on their observations around an effective path to creative results in today’s marketing landscape.

“It is evident that agencies who are willing to collaborate outside of their own four, or forty, walls have produced outstanding work in remarkably short time-frames. This requires a willingness to drop egos, an appetite for best-in-class collaboration and the confidence to share revenue. The latter is best achieved with a low overhead setup.” says Preusse.  

Both state they have also noticed the significant difference it makes when agency staff are presented with the opportunities of becoming partners.

“Being founders we can build an agency around the principle of partnership and ultimately ownership. We aim to attract and foster teams and individuals who are keen to continually dig deep to find the right creative solutions for their clients’ brands. Having skin in the game, fuels behaviour focused on client success. And unsurprisingly clients tend to like that,” said Richards.

“The word 'agile' is currently the most overused, yet under-applied word on the agency landscape,” says Preusse, who recognises the need for non-formulaic thinking coupled with swift action to produce work that connects in creative and meaningful ways. Something she says is harder to achieve in larger, multi-layered organisations.

Both partners describe Will as a creative agency, not an advertising agency. Their focus is strategic and creative brand development with a strong sense of purpose and emotional connection. They say that this principle mandates exploring what’s right for the brand, whether traditional communications or unconventional marketing, with delivery by Will or specialist partners with equal will. The award winning collaborators so far include teams and individuals from San Francisco, LA, Paris and of course BC.

And what’s with the name? "Will is the most powerful quality we possess. Will does big things like putting people on the moon. And little things like making you order salad instead of fries. Will is the difference between like it and love it. Will is the two hands that push firmly on the back of anyone who ever did the thing they needed to do but didn’t really have to. Without will, there’s no way. So we are Will. And we’re the way," explained Preusse.

Jenn Hicks, previously with St. Bernadine, Cossette and The&Partnership, joined Will in December as a full-time senior creative. As of February Nicola Poskitt, previously also at Cossette, joined Will as account manager/planner.

The Will client list already includes Nature’s Path Foods, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Squamish Valley Music Festival, Ostara and Hootsuite.