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A year after changing ownership hands, America\u2019s Finest News Source has opened America\u2019s Finest Creative Agency.<\/p>\n
As of today, The Onion is offering copywriting and creative strategy services to brands under its new agency moniker. That includes help with everything from stunt marketing to email copy to social-first vertical video.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are certainly not a one-and-done shop,\u201d CMO Leila Brillson exclusively told Marketing Brew. \u201cThe concept here is that we are going to give you the tools that you need for a really entertaining and human-feeling campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marnie Shure, who previously was managing editor at The Onion from 2012 to 2017, and Howie Kaplan, who currently works as a marketing consultant for The Onion, will run the agency internally and oversee a lean team of copywriters, most of whom have experience writing for The Onion and many of whom have written for events like awards shows, Brillson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are hoping to make a brand\u2019s content as smart and entertaining as our content,\u201d Brillson said, \u201clike having a little writer’s room in your pocket or a writer’s room on speed dial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brillson, who previously ran her own agency and worked in brand and social marketing for companies like Bumble, TikTok, and Disney before joining The Onion, said that the inspiration for America\u2019s Finest Creative Agency came after she watched the editorial staff write hundreds of headlines each week and analyze the ones that don\u2019t work\u2014something she called a \u201cPhD in copywriting.\u201d It\u2019s a skill that she thinks brands can benefit from.<\/p>\n
It also doesn\u2019t hurt that many Onion writers already have experience writing ads\u2014or at least the fake ones that run in the paper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing that makes a brand feel more authentic or connected than comedy,\u201d Brillson said.<\/p>\n
Opening an agency will allow The Onion to move beyond display ads and subscriptions as its primary revenue sources. When the Onion changed ownership, it debuted a membership model that Brillson said has proven to be sustainable in the last year, but if digital media\u2019s infamous \u201cpivot to video\u201d saga taught Brillson anything, it\u2019s that the need to diversify monetary streams is very real, she said.<\/p>\n
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Opening a marketing arm isn\u2019t an entirely new concept for The Onion. Some may remember Onion Labs, the publication\u2019s in-house advertising and marketing team that existed under the publication\u2019s previous owner, G\/O Media. According to Brillson, while Onion Labs was made up of 20 to 30 people, the goal for the new creative agency is to operate with a smaller headcount and limited overhead costs so as not to contribute to agency bloat.<\/p>\n
Some agencies and brands have leaned on generative AI tools for copywriting, or have scrapped copy roles altogether, but Brillson said she isn\u2019t worried about competing with robots. That\u2019s not only because of the agency\u2019s scrappy and tiered service costs, she said, but also because by and large, AI is not very funny.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI is not set up for those nuances,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s set up to flatten something into the broadest and most middle-ground content it can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to the official launch of America\u2019s Finest Creative Agency, The Onion had already started working on social campaigns for entertainment and advocacy clients like Project Liberty, the nonprofit founded by TikTok bidder Frank McCourt to advocate for a decentralized internet. For Project Liberty, the publication threw a \u201cGood Party for Bad Times\u201d earlier this spring and previously created \u201cOnion Talks,\u201d a video parodying TED Talks about the (completely theoretical) drawbacks of data mining.<\/p>\n