New US Indie RECE Builds Its Model on Radical Empathy
A new US independent agency has launched with a mission to radically speed up the creative process without sacrificing audience insight.
Founded by creative industry leaders Toygar Bazarkaya, alongside partners Ole Pedersen and Ole Lund, RECE is built on a bespoke methodology the founders describe as ‘High-Speed Anthropology’ – a process designed to embed clients and agency teams in real-time conversations with real audiences to inspire creative work from the outset.
Rejecting the traditional model of strategy-first, creative-second, RECE aims to collapse silos, accelerate timelines, and drive business growth. Artificial intelligence is also baked into the process to help scale ideas and get campaigns to market quicker.
“This approach not only provides deeper understanding of an audience and what motivates them (hence empathy), it dramatically cuts development timelines,” says Toygar. “AI then helps scale breakthrough work faster, so we can get ideas into the market quickly and impact the bottom line.
“We believe that when radical empathy powers creative excellence, business and brands grow. So we built an agency around those principles and developed a new methodology to make it all work.”
High-Speed Anthropology
That methodology is rooted in the idea that while brands have access to vast amounts of behavioural data, they often lack understanding of the cultural motivations behind that behaviour. Traditional research tools might tell marketers what audiences are doing – but not why. Anthropology can offer those deeper insights, Toygar explains, but it’s often too slow for today’s fast-moving market. RECE’s response is ‘High-Speed Anthropology’ – a real-time, in-the-field process designed to bring agency and client teams closer to audiences from the outset, fuelling creative development with immediacy and relevance.
With RECE, Toygar doesn’t want “to just create campaigns” – he and the team want to forge connections and “close the gap” between brands and audiences. “While we love the opportunity to deliver creative work that wins awards,” he says, “the real test today is to produce work that drives real, measurable business growth for clients facing uncertain markets and who are challenged to keep pace with change.”
To support its speed-to-market model and ensure high production standards, RECE has built a full-service offering by tapping into the founders’ networks and embedding strategic partnerships into its workflow. The agency’s capabilities span brand and communications strategy, design across digital and physical touchpoints, creative development for social, campaigns and experiential, in-house production for content and AI, external production services, and public relations including corporate comms and crisis management.
Toygar points to the LIONS 2025 State of Creativity study as proof of concept. In the latest iteration of its annual global survey, 51% of brands rated their ability to develop high-quality insights as poor or very poor, while 57% struggled to react quickly to cultural moments.
“The lack of insight and inability to keep pace with culture is making brands and creatives more risk averse,” says Toygar. “There is an intense desire for bold and unconventional ideas, but without a solid strategic foundation upon which to build them, few are willing to put their budgets (and careers) on the line to support ‘risky’ work.”
As agency veterans, none of this is surprising to Toygar and the rest of the RECE founders. “We have lived and operated in this construct for our entire careers. It’s what inspired us to start our own independent shop with the singular focus of pursuing a new way of working.”
Built on Radical Empathy
RECE’s founding team brings together decades of global experience across creativity, strategy and design. Toygar, the agency’s chief creative officer, has earned more than 30 Cannes Lions, and has held senior roles at agencies including BBDO, DDB, Havas and Mullen, creating work for brands like Visa, Mercedes-Benz and McDonald’s.
Chief strategy officer Ole Pedersen brings a unique mix of military training, political insight and cultural immersion to his 25-year strategy career, having worked across nearly every category and spoken at events such as Cannes and APG.
Chief design officer Ole Lund is a branding expert whose work for clients like FENDI, Adidas and Carlsberg has earned recognition from D&AD, AIGA and the Danish Design Awards.
After decades of leading teams and agencies, and partnering with major global brands, the RECE founders observed a recurring challenge: even the best creative ideas often fall flat when they’re disconnected from real emotional understanding.
“The best creative work that actually drove business for our clients had one thing in common: Empathy. Not knowledge. Not strategy. But radical empathy.
“And here’s the best part: when we begin with radical empathy, we can be bold and unconventional without being risky. Why? Because risk and empathy are inversely proportional.”
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