Giant Spoon adds ECD Haywood Watkins III and creative director Gage Young. * Gage Young NEW YORK - Giant Spoon has signed former Droga5 creative Haywood Watkins III as executive creative director and Gage Young as creative director, following a series of new business wins since the agency joined forces with Wpromote as Wpromote x Giant Spoon. Watkins III and Young will report directly to Giant Spoon chief creative officer Ian Grody, further bolstering creative strategy and execution for Giant Spoon's roster of clients, which includes: Autodesk, Lucid Motors, and Ritual. "Haywood is a powerhouse. His ideas actually solve problems and his output comes to life across every conceivable and inconceivable medium. No one is better equipped to lead our creative campaign practice, and with him at the helm, our next chapter promises to be epic," said Grody. "Gage is the guy everyone wants on their business. Soul of an artist, work ethic of an athlete. And always, always, always behind his team." Watkins III has spent 15 years turning cultural insight into work that changes how people see something familiar. At VICE, he helped launch the world's first digital-only clothing collection, giving people a way to express themselves with zero environmental cost, with all proceeds going to WaterAid. At Droga5, he used voice-cloning technology to let an illiterate mother read her children a bedtime story in her own voice for the first time. His work has been recognized by Cannes Lions, The Webby Awards, The Design Museum of London, and The Smithsonian. He is also active in teaching and mentorship, having founded ADCOLOR Futures and developed the 4A's annual internship program, Spring Training. Young is a New York-based creative director, filmmaker, and photographer with two decades of experience shaping work across music, tech, and advertising, including work for Droga5 and Barton F. Graf 5000. Off the clock, he's shooting skate films and staying immersed in music and culture, and that appetite for exercising his creative muscle outside the office shows up in every brief he touches, in a point of view that stays current, human, and a little unexpected. His work has earned recognition from Cannes Lions, The One Show, D&AD, The Effies, and The Clios, among others. Monday, July 13, 2026 Sam Neill, a smoothly elegant and versatile actor whose career moved from art film to blockbuster as he dodged velociraptors in "Jurassic Park" and played Holly Hunter's husband in "The Piano," has died. He was 78. In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Neill died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor's social media page. His death was "sudden and unexpected," the statement said, adding that he "remained cancer free" when he died. A cause of death wasn't specified. "Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life," his family wrote. Actor came to world's notice with "Dead Calm" and "My Brilliant Career" Neill was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, a list that includes Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy "Sweet Revenge" to chopping off Hunter's finger in "The Piano" to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror "Event Horizon." In "Omen III: The Final Conflict," he played Damien the Antichrist and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in "The Tudors." The actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong's 1979 film "My Brilliant Career," which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce's "Dead Calm," a classy thriller set at sea and co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.

Wpromote x Giant Spoon launches The Care Index(TM), connecting brand strength to revenue. Jun 17, 2026, 08:00 ET The new framework diagnoses where a brand's consumer relationships are breaking down, then translates those learnings into growth opportunities EL SEGUNDO, Calif., June 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Just six months after joining forces, Wpromote x Giant Spoon has launched the Care Index(TM), a proprietary diagnostic framework for measuring long-term sustainable brand growth across three key drivers: know, like, and care. The Care Index identifies exactly where consumer connections fracture and diagnoses precisely where media and creative investments will yield the highest growth, giving the agency a foundation for translating insights into action. The Care Index evaluates where consumers stand in their relationship with a brand. Most brands can get people to know them. Fewer earn genuine affinity. But "care" is where real business value lives: that's the stage when consumers choose the brand over competitors, come back on their own, and recommend it to others. "When we came together as Wpromote x Giant Spoon six months ago, our primary mission was to eliminate silos between brand building and bottom-line performance," said Janna Navarro, VP, Managing Director at Wpromote, who led the development of the Care Index. "The Care Index is the realization of that vision. To drive growth, you need customers to know your brand, like you, and care about you. For the first time, we aren't just measuring that emotional care, we are translating it directly into media and creative actions that drive revenue." Using behavioral, engagement, and advocacy signals, the Care Index identifies exactly where consumers are dropping off and why. That diagnostic then shapes everything: which audiences to prioritize, what creative will spark the right interest, where to invest media dollars, and what success looks like. The same framework that diagnoses the brand problem also drives creative ideation and media planning. Audience targeting, messaging, and budget allocation all flow from the same source of truth, allowing creative and performance media teams to work in lockstep from day one. The Index continues to measure the brand's health so teams can refine strategy and optimize over time. Early validation of the Care Index across more than 100 mid-market B2C retail brands in 22 subcategories shows that each five-point increase in brand care correlates with approximately 10% increase in incremental annual revenue, establishing a clear financial value for brand-building efforts. In initial alpha testing, Care Score improvements correlated with next-month revenue results at 90%, suggesting the Index functions as a predictive signal, not just a diagnostic, and a source of agile brand insights that will help marketers move faster. "For years, CMOs have had to defend brand investment in a language CFOs don't speak," said Wpromote x Giant Spoon CEO Andrea Bendzick. "The Care Index changes that. When you can show that each point of care drives real revenue impact, and you have the data to back up where to invest next, you're not debating brand versus performance anymore. You're just talking about growth." Wpromote x Giant Spoon partnered with Northwestern University's Medill School Immersion Quarter Program to test and validate the Care Index. Through the initiative, the agency worked with a team of graduate marketing students to pressure-test early hypotheses and strengthen the framework, combining academic rigor with real-world marketing application. "We're working with students who'll be running marketing teams in a few years, so we focus on where the consumer journey is headed, not where it's been," said Ryan Reis, Northwestern Lecturer and Faculty Advisor. "Wpromote x Giant Spoon came to us because they wanted that perspective built into the framework from the start. Our students helped stress-test the early concepts and push back on what wasn't connecting." The Care Index(TM) is integrated into Wpromote x Giant Spoon's intelligence platform, Polaris IQ, giving clients real-time visibility into brand progress, with five clients across multiple industries currently participating in its alpha release. About Wpromote x Giant Spoon Wpromote x Giant Spoon is an independent, full-funnel marketing agency that unites brand and bottom line to drive measurable business growth. By integrating media, data, performance, and world-class creative, we help leading brands across industries like GE, Walmart, Vuori, and Intuit QuickBooks deliver immediate results while building long-term value. SOURCE Wpromote

Wpromote's acquisition of Giant Spoon promises to bring bold creativity and proven performance into one frictionless client experience.