The month of February marks the 20th anniversary of <a href="www.oinkcreative.com.>Oink Ink, the New York City-based creative services agency known for producing award-winning radio advertising. Now a bi-coastal company, with an office in Santa Monica, CA, <a href="www.oinkcreative.com.>Oink Ink is a national leader in creative radio campaigns and more recently, visual content for television and the web. The boutique agency’s efforts have resulted in hundreds of industry awards over the years and counts among its clients almost every major advertising agency and brand in the U.S.
Brothers Dan Price, Oink’s President and Executive Producer, and Jim Price, Vice President and Creative Director, are established experts in the production, directing, writing, and casting of radio and TV commercials. They have grown the once-tiny shop from a one-room office in their hometown of Philadelphia to one of the largest and most sought-out of its kind. Over the last two decades <a href="www.oinkcreative.com.>Oink Ink has worked with agencies which include BBDO, Crispin Porter, JWT, McCann, Ogilvy, Goodby, Saatchi, and Y&R for clients Google, IKEA, CBS, Staples, AT&T, Ford, IBM, Miller Lite—and literally hundreds more. Outside of writing and production, both brothers keep busy with speaking engagements at ad clubs across North America and judging duties for several awards panels. Since 2011 Dan Price has chaired both the One Show and CLIO juries for radio. He’s also been quoted in Larry Oakner’s And Now a Few Laughs from Our Sponsor and interviewed by numerous industry publications.
After establishing itself in the City of Brotherly Love, <a href="www.oinkcreative.com.>Oink Ink almost immediately moved to New York City, operating from offices at 39th and Madison. Several years later, in 2001, the company moved to SoHo, establishing its first in-house recording studio, a 10,000 square foot facility that included three audio suites. In 2005 Oink’s west coast operation grew to require its own recording facility, and so the Price brothers built one in Venice, CA. Now, twenty years after recording its first commercial (“I think it was for NYSEG and agency ICE Communications,” recalls Jim Price. “We charged them $800.”), <a href="www.oinkcreative.com.>Oink Ink now occupies a brand new studio facility in midtown Manhattan with new oceanfront offices in Santa Monica, California. Even the London International Advertising Awards weighed in on Oink’s coming of age, naming it one of only 5 “Top Radio Production Companies” of the last 20 years.
Beyond the work Oink performs for its clients, the company conducts the popular Dead Radio Contest, now an annual worldwide competition going into its 15th year. It offers advertising copywriters the opportunity to bring back to life radio scripts that were ignored or rejected by a client. “The contest actually started as a way for us to identify good radio writers… which are not easy to find,” says Dan Price. “It eventually became a pretty popular event each year; almost a ‘calling card’ for us.”
Several winning spots have regained the attention of the intended client, and once produced by Oink, even gone on to earn some of the industry’s most coveted awards. Since 1992 <a href="www.oinkcreative.com.>Oink Ink has netted a multitude of Radio Mercury Awards, Cannes Lions, One Show Pencils, Clios, London International Awards, and scores of Promax awards.
Oink continues to evolve and grow with the industry. The company’s business model has expanded to include creative for television and new media as well as advertising services for online. Says Jim Price, “Anymore we’re just as busy with these new disciplines as we are with radio. We seem to consistently have our plates full with projects of all sorts, which is really a nice way to work. We’ve been very lucky.”
To mark the shop’s 20 years in business, Oink recently unveiled its brand-new website at www.oinkcreative.com. The Flash-based site features many pieces of Oink’s work, available for listening or viewing, along with a collection of press and media mentions from many of the publications that have covered Oink’s work and awards over the years, from The New York Times, Adweek and Ad Age to SHOOT and Creativity Online.
