Feld Advertising, the multi-faceted integrated creative agency driven by accountability, is doubling-down on growth by hiring two senior advertising professionals, Elizabeth Dorrance as Executive Media Director and Gordon Gray as Chief Client Officer, two new positions. Both executives report directly to Mic Feld, Founder and CEO of Feld, which has been San Francisco’s “best-kept secret” independent creative shop since 2001 and has experienced a recent surge in growth. The pair of new hires is part of a fresh recruitment drive by the agency as it expands operations and services to accommodate a boost in marketing initiatives among existing clients and new business.
“Elizabeth and Gordon are impressive,” said Feld. “They are marketing professionals of the highest caliber, experienced, creative, diligent, consummate, strategic and truly brilliant. I feel privileged to be able to work with them as we scale up our capabilities and scale high, building an agency for the future while remaining an extraordinarily dependable business partner for our clients, working closely with them, making sure that we all succeed and prosper.”
Dorrance has twenty-plus years of media planning and buying experience, both on client and agency side, across a broad range of brand categories including CPG, healthcare, finance, travel, and retail. She worked at Expedia Group for over fourteen years, rising to Global Media Director in charge of building the tech giant’s $650M global in-house media agency from the ground up and managing all of Expedia’s travel brands’ media and measurement. Prior to Expedia, she worked at several major New York agencies, including Mediacom, MPG, Y&R, and Jordan McGrath. She was a member of the executive team that founded MPG (now Havas Media), consolidating five media departments across the US to create a $3.5 billion media agency.
“Feld Advertising is a unique opportunity for me and for the agency’s clients,” said Dorrance. “Feld culture is laser focused on results not wish fulfillment, and that has been my operating principle throughout my career, delivering work that is measurable and drives a return on investment. At Feld my remit is to develop and implement innovative, integrated media programs that build brand equity and maximize revenue growth. I am leading the development and deployment of unique measurement methodologies, in collaboration with analytics, that quantify and optimize the business impact of our campaigns. Today, more than ever, marketing is all about outcomes. I’m thrilled and proud to be working with an agency that has that code written deeply and fundamentally in its DNA.”
Gray’s resume includes prestigious assignments at top global creative agencies, spanning nineteen years. He began his career at M&C Saatchi in London then moved to UK creative powerhouse WCRS working on award winning BMW campaigns. Next stop Fallon London where Gray focused on work for Sony (winning a Cannes Lions for Sony) and French multinational telecommunications brand Orange. Later he led the global Nokia team at JWT London. In 2013 he moved to Los Angeles joining 72andsunny as Brand Director responsible for Tillamook (taking an Effie award for its rebrand), Busch Beer and Natural Light, then jumped to nearby David & Goliath as Account Director responsible for Kia USA’s national advertising business. At Zambezi, Gray was Group Account Director handling TaylorMade Golf, Ultimate Kronos Group, the USGA, Health-Ade, Curology and The St. James, before being elevated to Executive Director, Brand, spearheading agency direction and growth strategy.
“This is an amazing opportunity to help grow one of the most promising mid-size agencies in the market,” said Gray. “Feld’s total commitment to omnichannel solutions is unique for an agency in its weight class. Our clients come to us with problems to solve, and we leverage a full suite of media channels that are underpinned by sophisticated analytics and reporting. Creatively we are able to generate diverse assets from broadcast commercials to digital to brand response to direct response to social. In-house production allows us to practice our testing philosophy by effortlessly creating multiple assets across different audiences and messages. We test them all live in-market, keep the winners, get rid of the losers, and mitigate the risk while creating maximum efficiency for our clients. Feld has an incredible arsenal of tools I’m excited to use.”
Feld Advertising’s upswing comes as existing clients expand and accelerate their relationship with the agency, and as new business arrives. Originally a Brand Response TV shop, the agency is expanding its expertise in creative, media, digital and commercial production to accommodate rapid business growth. Over the past year the agency has added Erickson Ilog as Chief Financial Officer, Katherine Blunt as Director of Operations, Andrew Gage as Head of Production, all former Zambezi executives, as well as former Clorox Brand Manager Andrew Miller as the agency’s Director of Brand Strategy. Feld Advertising has been a longtime player in San Francisco’s busy and historic advertising scene. Mic Feld launched the agency in 2001 after a long career at Ogilvy, JWT and Foote Cone & Belding. He joined client side as CMO of one of the nation’s largest lenders before founding Feld.
More than an agency, Feld Advertising is an integrated creative marketing partner constantly generating ideas to increase sales and maximize return on advertising investment. Feld designs and produces campaigns in a variety of media including broadcast, cable, streaming and video, direct mail, digital advertising, print and out of home. Through its in-house production unit Graphite Films the agency has produced over 3,500 commercials and hundreds of online videos that are seen by millions of viewers each day. Feld is known for its unusually close collaboration with clients acting as one seamless team freely sharing information, forming testable hypotheses, testing in-market, reading the results and doubling down on the winners.
