After five years of building and finding some success, Fitzloff said that the agency is now “ready for its close-up,” with Higgins steering growth, Dave Daines leading strategy, Fitzloff and Palmer leading creative and design, and Adams leading the account team.

“In Kate we see a co-leader pushing us to be even more evolved and better at what we do, but also, more practically, to be a partner who brings her own network and her own world experiences into this mix to collectively get us onto that bigger stage,” said Fitzloff.

Deprogramming the cults

Fitzloff said that the shared focus on the work at both Wieden and Crispin back in the day was coupled with the fact that both shops at the time were “cults,” meaning they had a following and did things in a very specific way.

Fitzloff and Adams admitted that starting a new agency, especially after coming from such charged backgrounds, involved getting out of the singular W+K mindset while applying the best of what they had learned.

“In the interest of growing personal growth, as well as professional growth for ourselves and for the agency, it had to be about meeting new people and embracing alternative playbooks,” said Fitzloff, adding that accepting different approaches, especially those brought by Higgins, will only help Öpinionated grow.

Growth is matchmaking

Fitzloff sees what Wieden did for brands like Nike and Old Spice and he wants Öpinionated to help bring that success to the brands they work with, those that have thoughtful, deep human purposes and insights.

“A lot of our competitors are very much in in the business of short-term buzz and moving on to the next thing. We love a lot of that work and we respect a lot of those agencies, but we see them as short term sugar hits for those companies and not long term protein,” said Fitzloff.

Higgins will help with the growth of Öpinionated in several ways. One of them will be to help the agency get recognized and promote itself with smart branding. While nothing is ready to share, the team promises the agency will smartly bring its story to life. The other way she will help is with finding the right brands for the agency.

“I don’t think of it as sales, I think of it as more of matchmaking … because it’s not about trying to shove our way onto someone. It’s really about like mindedness,” said Higgins.