This week, one of the country’s leading creative marketing and communications agencies, SHADOW, celebrated 15 years of award-winning business. Over the course of its lifetime, we’ve seen the emergence of the tablet, the invention of Instagram, and the rise of the influencer. We felt the explosion of tabloid culture, and the onset of cancel culture. The Kardashians arrived. Oh, and there was a pandemic, too. That’s all to say: it’s been quite a time to be in The Biz.
When SHADOW first opened shop in 2007, co-founders Lisette Sand-Freedman, Brad Zeifman, Michelle Sokoloff and Liza Suloti worked out of Lisette’s apartment. They were small in numbers, but with a client list of heavy hitters like Armani Exchange, Tenjune and Intermix, they were playing up and making waves. Their specialty? Buzz PR. Aligning brands with celebrities, throwing splashy events, and drumming up creative ways to keep their clients’ names in the news. If you were opening a boutique on Robertson Blvd, nightclub in Manhattan, restaurant in Vegas, hotel in Miami Beach, SHADOW was your first call. Before long, the SHADOW apartment became an office in Flatiron; and a team of four became a company of 20. It seemed like behind every pop culture moment, stood a Shadow.
But not long after SHADOW opened — and seemingly overnight — traditional PR shops who were accustomed to creating relevance were struggling to hold onto their own. Publicity was becoming an increasingly small piece of a growing marketing machine, and more than a few agencies lost their footing trying to keep pace — with the culture, with the tech, and with the times.
“It was the wild wild west — no one knew what the next month would bring in terms of tools and tech. Brands were looking to their agencies to lean into that white space, take command over emerging platforms, and become savvier, more sophisticated storytellers,” said SHADOW co-founder Lisette Sand-Freedman. “We were so passionate about the space and our clients, we really didn’t hesitate. We dove into the culture, and embraced the turning of the wheel.”
Today, SHADOW’s ability to adapt, evolve, and dare we say lean into the chaos, has placed them squarely at the forefront of the field. Not only have they continued to find their media strategy skills in business and consumer press and continue to secure feature stories in Forbes Magazine, and dedicated segments on the TODAY Show — the kind of placements that change businesses overnight — but they’ve also broadened the agency’s scope to include Influencer, Creative, Experiential, Social, Strategy and Business divisions. With their expanded set of services, they’ve signed the likes of Bentley, Moët Hennessy, and Herschel Supply, while retaining long term clients like American Eagle, Aerie, Pottery Barn Brands, Moroccanoil and e.l.f. Cosmetics who trust SHADOW to evolve with them. In 2018, SHADOW made it official with a sweeping rebrand of their own: they dropped the PR from their name, and never looked back. They were the first agency to do so, and many others followed suit.
Agency leadership credits much of Shadow’s success to their willingness to let passionate juniors carve out their own pathways within the company. Their Experiential Division, for example, was created by Jamie D’Attoma, an event-savvy staffer who started out as Brad and Lisette’s assistant in 2009. Their much-lauded Creative Division began as a pitch from Brian Vaughan, a talented account lead who was itching for more. Both Vaughan and D’Attoma were named partners in 2020, along with fashion and retail standout, Erica Larsen.
“Those of us who have worked here for over a decade can speak to SHADOW’s commitment to fostering and growing talent from within,” said Creative Director and Partner, Brian Vaughan. “Through ten years of wins and losses — both professional and personal — SHADOW has been the consistent backdrop (and often the lead character) in the most pivotal scenes of our lives. It might feel unfashionable to describe a workplace in such intimate terms in 2022, but it’s in this kind of environment that we learn to lead with empathy, bring a sense of soul and personal passion to an industry that can feel deeply transactional, and really internalize the belief that we can invent any possibility.”
SHADOW leans into the whacky and avant-garde in order to create campaigns that transcend the noise of the internet. During company-wide brainstorms, every opinion is invited, no matter how big or outrageous. Once they land on the right idea, they appoint the most passionate person in charge and tell them to go — and to go all-in. This approach, fueled by raw creative instinct, but distilled through professional process, has yielded work like the #AerieREAL Positivity Challenge — an award-winning early entrant to the landscape of TikTok brand campaigns — Conair’s stunty “Untie the Knot” mock-wedding event; e.l.f. Cosmetics x Dunkin Donuts Wake-up & Make-up pop up; and American Eagle’s AExMe Prom — one of the first virtual events attempted by a brand after the onset of the pandemic, which welcomed almost 20,000 attendees. The through line between all of these campaigns suggests that legacy brands are turning to SHADOW to infuse a sense of freshness, and capture a new generation of eyeballs.
None of us know how culture and technology will evolve over the next 15 years — and how the communications industry will change with it — but SHADOW is looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead. They’re ready to wrap their arms around the next TikTok and cultivate a new generation of influencers. They’re excited to continue unearthing stories that even brand founders — too close to their own products — can’t see. Now 70 people strong, SHADOW is comprised of bonafide students of the zeitgeist, and they’re here to stay.
