What If a Creative Agency Believed in the 'Power of Sameness'?

Think diversity is ruining advertising? You're not alone. A new agency, Doug NYC, just launched in order to provide a white space in the industry. Doug NYC is an all-white, male-led creative agency that believes being homogeneous is genius. 

The DougNYC.com site, backdropped in calming shades of white, welcomes visitors to the Future of Advertising. A video, 'We’re Doug', asks people to 'Believe in the power of sameness'. One image on the site reads, 'If great minds think alike, we're the greatest!'

Sound backwards and... well, stupid? Doug was created as a parody by LA independent agency Dailey, which, since its 2017 buyback from IPG, has consciously tried to hire and promote for diversity.

“This idea started as a joke. We were talking about the benefits of diversity at the top. Then we all started joking about the absurdity of the opposite of that,” Dailey CCO Marcus Wesson says. “What if there were an agency that was promoting the opposite? The phrase, ‘We found a white space in the industry’ struck a note, and then we said, we should actually do it!”

Dailey created the agency to promote its SXSW panel, 'How Diversity Became Our Implicit Bias'. As viewers watch it, the site (and video) start to glitch, saying, 'The future of advertising is diverse. Get the real answers'. Clicking on the video or the 'learn more' button leads to the information page for the panel.

Doug NYC is posting once a day on its Instagram page. At the festival, a street team airdropped digital Doug NYC flyers, geotargeting Instagram posts, and handed out Doug NYC business cards with catchy phrases like 'Other shops pale in comparison'.