Kate Baynham and Hanna Wittmark have been promoted from associate creative directors to creative directors at Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P). Baynham and Wittmark have worked at GS&) for eight years on brands such as Comcast, Common Sense Media, Frito-Lay, Adobe, Chrysler, Nintendo and the Ad Council and helped the agency land two of its biggest accounts, Pepsi and Liberty Mutual.
“If you put Atlanta and Stockholm in a blender, you’d get their essence: a little dark, extremely irreverent and fearless, with this Scandinavian/Southern work ethic that makes for an unstoppable combination. Even though they’re from two very different parts of the world, they totally get each other,” said Margaret Johnson, chief creative officer at GS&P. “Their work transcends media. From creating the first emoji for a social cause to getting people to put down their mobile devices at the dinner table, their work is always rooted in humanity.”
Most recently, the pair created “Life Below Water” with YouTube, Google, Tribeca Enterprises and the United Nations. The underwater film, narrated by Morgan Freeman, is raising awareness about the fact that plastic will outnumber fish in the ocean by 2050. Of all the campaigns created to highlight the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, Life Below Water ranked number 1 in lifting people’s consideration to take action and solve the issue.
For the Ad Council, Baynham and Wittmark created the first official emoji tied to a social cause that lives on every phone in the world, providing kids with a tool to combat cyberbullying. The campaign not only brought together all of Silicon Valley but also garnered the attention of national news outlets such as WIRED, TechCrunch, the Washington Post, NPR and BuzzFeed and received a Gold and two Silver Cannes Lions awards.
Baynham and Wittmark’s passion for comedy and altruism came together a few years ago in the form of a series of public-service announcements for media think tank Common Sense Media’s #DeviceFreeDinner initiative. In perhaps their most difficult writing challenge to date, they had to create a series of scripts that made not only Jeff Goodby but also Will Ferrell laugh. The PSAs were praised in publications such as Esquire; featured on TODAY, the popular morning talk show; and went “Immortal” on Funny or Die.
The duo also has created work for Adobe’s “Do You Know What Your Marketing Is Doing?” campaign, producing spots showing everything from illicit social-clout dealings in “Mean Streets” to a failure to launch by way of data in “The Launch.”
Baynham and Wittmark were named Next Creative Leaders by the One Club and the 3% Movement—the first female team to do so. Their work has been awarded by festivals such as the Cannes Lions, Design and Art Direction, the Effie Awards, the Art Directors Club and the One Show.
