Meet ImaginaryFriend: The Agency Built to Play Nice with In-House Teams

Photo, from left to right: Daniel Bonder, Caroline Doyle and Dave Brown
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A shared lightbulb moment has led three US ad industry veterans to launch a new kind of agency: ImaginaryFriend.

Daniel Bonder, Dave Brown (who are both co-CCOs) and Caroline Doyle (president) have over 20 years of experience between them at the likes of adam&eveNYC, R/GA and Observatory. Despite having in-house designers, editors, social media creators, and more, they identified that top brands still need specialised expertise across the ever-increasing number of marketing channels they operate in, as well as big-picture thinking that they feel only an outsider can bring.

According to Daniel, the lightbulb moment came when they took a beat to look at their client rosters, and realised that almost all of them had some form of in-house capabilities. “It felt like there might be a white space for a new role agencies could play in their clients' hectic lives,” he says, speaking with LBB.

While much rhetoric around the rise of in-house agencies has centred around potential threats to the agency landscape, Daniel and his business partners see it as an opportunity. “The way in which agencies have worked alongside in-house teams is largely broken,” he says, adding that each side is often competing with each other instead of collaborating to get to the best work. That’s often because roles and responsibilities overlap causing more layers and friction. “Agencies have traditionally offered one size fits all models that don’t align with the speed and talent that clients have inside their own doors,” says Daniel. “Moreover, it’s well known but often after a pitch, senior talent and management disappear and clients are left with more inexperienced talent on their agency team.”

At their previous agencies, Daniel noticed that in-house teams were often treated like external clients, even though they often had deeper brand knowledge. They would often find themselves doing the same strategic or creative work as the in-house teams, and it would merely come down to cost or resources to decide on which one would see the light of day.

“We think there’s a different way forward,” he adds, “where we create bespoke teams of senior talent who bring their fresh perspective and expertise to collaborate, not compete with in-house teams, providing solutions for the myriad of marketing challenges that these brands have to face on the daily.”

ImaginaryFriend is already putting its model to the test with its first client, Fontainebleau Las Vegas – a new multibillion-dollar luxury resort on the Las Vegas Strip. For a property of that scale, with offerings such as 3,644 rooms and suites, a casino, world-class restaurants, retail, pool experiences, the need for content is “virtually endless”, says Daniel. So, the brand’s in-house team needed help creating a clear brand framework to generate consistency among the dozens of sub-brands at the property.

Moreover, it needed breakthrough concepts for the myriad moments that would take place at the hotel throughout the year. “We created a bespoke team for their needs that got to amazing work quickly and works hand-in-hand alongside their internal team,” says Daniel.

ImaginaryFriend is positioning itself as a behind-the-scenes partner for brands, aiming to fill talent gaps and deliver culturally relevant work quickly. The agency offers four core services – strategy, creative, execution, and amplification – covering areas such as brand architecture, communications strategy, design, events, brand entertainment and partnerships, content creation, advertising, and social and influencer marketing.

“We are seen by clients and in-house teams as a partner not a vendor,” says Daniel. “We think of ourselves as the go-to team for their in-house team and that means working alongside them to solve their problems.”