Rankin Opens Full-Service Creative Agency in London
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LONDON — The British photographer and filmmaker Rankin is getting into the creative content game, broadening his reach from image-making into a full-service, eponymous agency that gathers his various businesses under a single umbrella.
An announcement is expected today.
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Rankin, the agency, which launches officially this week, is aiming to offer clients a 360-degree service, with a staff of more than 80 that will work on creating campaigns and activations, editorial content, brand identity, talent management and start-to-finish production.
The new business includes Rankin’s companies Tonic Reps, The Full Service, Rankin Photography and Rankin Film.
He has tapped Richard Pinder, formerly of Publicis Groupe and the Crispin Porter agency, as chief executive officer, and Christine Jones, formerly of Ogilvy & Mather and WPP, as executive creative director.
The new agency’s clients include Samsonite, Unilever and Rolls-Royce. Rankin recently tapped the “Game of Thrones” actress Gwendoline Christie to appear in a Rolls-Royce ad campaign.
“I’ve always been excited by the new, so when the world started changing I just grabbed it,” said Rankin, whose full name is John Rankin Waddell.
Pinder said the agency is about “taking Rankin’s reputation as a cultural provocateur and providing that same creative agitation for brands that need to cut through all the media clutter.”
Jones said the new agency is aiming to help brand brands become “freshly relevant to a complex world that, frankly, needs to be impressed to pay any attention.”
Rankin founded Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack, and later moved on to a career in photography where he became known for his bold, black-and-white portraiture, images of celebrities ranging from Kate Moss to Queen Elizabeth, and his fashion photography.
The show will span four months during which time the photographer’s work will be on display during the Vogue Photo Festival and Fashion Film Festival in November and women’s fashion week in February, among other events.
“I am at heart a workaholic, I’m always looking for a new challenge, so with this show we really wanted to push the way it works,” Rankin said. “It is going to be logistically difficult, but the idea of a rotating format will be hugely rewarding, as it showcases more of what I do but also brings out some unexpected connections, hopefully.”
In addition to cofounding Dazed & Confused in 1991, Rankin has published AnOther and AnOther Man magazines, alongside more than 40 books and the biannual fashion, culture and lifestyle print and digital platform Hunger.
His photography has appeared in his own publications as well as in magazines including Elle, Vogue, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone and Wonderland. Additionally, his images have been exhibited in locations such as MoMA in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
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