Austin creative agency, Callen has made nine new hires after a bumper year. The hires span creative, account leadership, and production. The new hires will report to Craig Allen, Mike Davidson, and David Hughes and support accounts including Sandisk, Olipop, Whatnot, and Crocs. 

With collective experience at Wieden+Kennedy, The Martin Agency, Monks, and TBWA\Chiat\Day, among other top-tier creative shops, the new intake reinforces Callen’s growth and investment in top talent. Each individual brings strong creative and strategic acumen, with accolades ranging from Emmy awards to USA Today Ad Meter #1 Super Bowl slots to the usual array of industry awards, including Cannes Lions, D&D Pencils, Webby’s, and Clio Awards. Their thinking has shaped iconic brands such as Nike, Budweiser, Instacart, Skittles, State Farm, Burger King, and GEICO, to name a few examples. 

“The advertising industry has changed over the years. At Callen, we have become a haven for people who still love creativity, but have fallen out of love with the industry itself. I am proud to have built a place that attracts such incredible talent and inspires people to create fun, unexpected work,” stated Craig Allen, founder and chief creative officer at Callen. “At its core, our culture is simple: if people are having a good time doing the work, they’ll create something people actually want to experience. Create things that matter to real humans.”

Brian Culp, Katie Bero, Eli Ferrer, and Jeffrey Hodgson join CALLEN as creative directors from TBWA\Chiat\Day. Throughout his nearly 20 years in the industry, Culp has delivered a Skittles Super Bowl commercial starring Elijah Wood to someone’s front door, reunited Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito to win USA Today’s Ad Meter, and netted an Emmy nomination for State Farm. Since entering the industry in 2007, Bero has picked up the #1 spot on USA Today’s Ad Meter, secured an Emmy nomination, and won numerous advertising awards, including a D&AD Wooden Pencil, multiple Clio Awards, and a Silver Cannes Lion, for work on brands such as Skittles, State Farm, Coors Light, and the NHL. Honoured together on Adweek’s Creative 100 in 2020, Ferrer and Hodgson have partnered on Popeyes, Skittles, and more since first meeting at Gut. 

Ryan Raab and Brett Beaty round out the creative hires, both as creative directors. Raab comes to Callen from The Martin Agency, with experience developing conceptual creative for Burger King, Newcastle Brown Ale, Johnsonville, and most recently, GEICO. Beaty spent nine years at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, where he led work on accounts including Pepsi, Frito Lay, and Liberty Mutual. 

Austin Shore joins the production department as executive producer. She recently served as senior creative producer at Monks after spending over six years at Wieden+Kennedy. She has collected many of advertising’s most prestigious awards along the way, including two “Weird and Experimental” Webby Awards.

On the account side, Kate Schaetzle comes to Callen after three years as the director of brand and culture at Instacart, where she led brand activations, partnerships and social, and saw Instacart through an IPO and its first-ever Super Bowl commercial. She also spent six years at Wieden+Kennedy, where she helped to create Nike’s Emmy-winning split-screen ad, made an epic three-minute film for the 2019 Women’s World Cup, and sent a chicken sandwich to space. Meanwhile, Demetrius Wallace enters the agency as account supervisor, joining Callen from Wieden+Kennedy, where he spent five years steering large-scale work for brands like Allstate, Visa, Supercell, HP, and Budweiser.

Last year, Callen also added Jess Monsey as chief opportunity officer, David Terry as chief strength officer, Paola Ortega as strategy director, and Mike Davidson as head of production.

“We know the best talent has options,” cmmented David Hughes, partner and president at CALLEN. “So when people choose Callen, we don’t take it lightly. What’s exciting isn’t just that we’ve added nine incredibly accomplished people, it’s that every one of them believes the same thing we do: the best work happens when you surround great people with the freedom to take big swings and have fun doing it. That’s the culture we’re building, and these hires make it even stronger.” 

This hiring boom comes on the heels of a momentous year for CALLEN, that included a 80.5% revenue increase in the past 12 months. Olipop named Callen its lead creative agency after the agency added a new layer to the brand’s SpongeBob collaboration – a competitor product from Plankton called Chumpop. Meanwhile, Sandisk continues to partner with Callen on work that breaks the mould – from a charming, quasi-indestructible robot tagging along for the wildest parts of the creative journey to a campaign based on ear-worm tunes that make you rethink what a Sandisk drive can really hold, and resulting in a 13% lift in revenue on Amazon and 39% quarter-over-quarter growth in the consumer category.

All nine new hires begin their roles immediately.