• by Larissa Faw , March 10, 2017

Two years after its launch, Danger Pigeon is pivoting to become the first “Character Agency" to focus on brands with iconic characters or brands looking to develop their "character.”

Danger Pigeon works with other creative agencies in addition to their own client roster which includes General Mills, Blip Toys, Girl Scouts of America, Sesame Workshop, Vayner Media, and Portfolio Animation.

Created by former Saatchi and GREY Creative Director Pat Giles, and his wife and longtime copywriting partner Amy Giles, the agency says its ad clients were all character-related and looking for more than just the strategy behind the character. Rather, they sought gaming and content built around characters.

“It started to be more and more obvious that we were the character agency,” says Giles. "We are still doing the same work but also realized we were the only agency like it.”

With few kid-focused agencies, the agency believes it is well-positioned to capture this growing niche. “Kids stuff is great to work on, because that audience is all about having fun,” says Giles. “So are we. Adults aren’t having any fun anymore. We’d like to help make advertising be a little bit more fun.”

Still, creating a relevant, strategically grounded brand avatar that resonates with a target audience is not an easy thing to do, he says. "There should be a museum of ‘brand characters that didn’t survive,’ because the history of advertising is full of them. Brands need to constantly re-evaluate their brand characters, but many times your character could be one false move away from becoming irrelevant.”

Pat Giles has the experience to back up this decision. The industry veteran previously led creative assignments for an impressive list of ad icons in his career: Lucky the Leprechaun, My Little Pony, McGruff the Crime Dog, TRIX Rabbit, Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, The Pillsbury Doughboy, Count Chocula, and The Green Giant, among others.
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