To best serve top-tier beauty and lifestyle clients, LA-based Agency Guacamole builds internal centers of excellence around its most in-demand services, making both client engagements and external partnerships more turnkey and productive. An example of this is their approach to influencer marketing; they’ve developed three broad strategies that allow clients to understand what would be most effective for a launch or brand moment, which also allows their internal teams to maintain long-term relationships with creators. As such, it’s been a big year of growth for the agency; they expanded staff by 50 percent to meet new business wins, with clients across PR, the aforementioned influencer marketing program and events (especially as IRL is booming post-pandemic). Agency Guacamole also doubled their warehousing capabilities to fully handle client influencer programs.
Leadership team:
Bilal Kaiser, Founder
Notable long-term clients:
Redken, MALIN+GOETZ, L'Oreal Professionnel, Urban Decay Cosmetics
New client wins:
La Roche-Posay, AcneFree, Kiehl's
How is the agency advancing DEI in the industry?
“Outside of client work, Agency Guacamole founder Bilal Kaiser is dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion in the beauty and lifestyle industry. He founded the Beauty, Lifestyle and Nurturing Diversity initiative (B.L.N.D.) in 2018, which has become an annual, must-see event that brings together beauty industry leaders from various backgrounds to discuss D&I in our category – and how we can increase and nurture representation in everything from PR/marketing to product development. In 2021, Agency Guacamole took B.L.N.D. to Atlanta and New York, with an LA event planned in 2022. The B.L.N.D. event series continues to grow and since 2018 has showcased incredibly diverse voices in the space from a wide range of roles; made inroads across leading companies in our industry; been honored by organizations for its forward-thinking approach, including the esteemed Joseph Roos Community Service Award from the PRSA-LA, which Bilal received in 2019.”
Design communications agency Camron has had a booming 2022 across its offices, from their UK HQ to their presence in NYC, LA and Milan. Earlier this year, PR vets Kimberly Flaster and Angharad Coates joined the agency to co-lead its strategy for Camron US. Fast forward and this division has transitioned to Camron North America, as the agency just opened up a Toronto office (they already represent EQ3 and Canada's most prestigious architecture firm, KPMB). Also of note this year: Camron launched its inaugural Power of Design, a print and digital platform focused on sharing their POV on the impact of design. As they work to give such talented design minds representation on the global stage, the team is also helping better the industry as a whole; Camron is currently supporting MillerKnoll on their Diversity in Design initiative.
Leadership team:
Alexei Orlov, Owner
Notable long-term clients:
Nike, Gucci Decor, MUJI, Olson Kundig, Design Miami, 1st Dibs, Farrow & Ball, Holly Hunt, Alfredo Paredes
New client wins:
MillerKnoll's portfolio of brands, including Design Within Reach, Herman Miller and Knoll; Jeremiah Brent's ATRIO, the launch of Bisazza's collaboration with Fornasetti
How are you innovating and moving the industry forward?
“In 2022, Camron launched Power of Design, a platform focused on what design means and featuring the most prominent voices in tech, product, brand, industry and innovation The printed and digital publication was distributed widely in the design world. It included such voices as Joe Gebbia of AirBnB, Jonathan Mildenhall of 21st Century Brands and Damian Bradfield of WeTransfer.”
