• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 21, 2023

Imagine launching a new ad agency and branding it 9/11 a year before, well, 9/11. That’s not exactly what happened to Washington, D.C.-based January Third, but was close enough that two years after the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, it has rebranded itself as the decidedly more upbeat “This January,” as in fresh starts, a new beginning, the first month of a new year?.

"It was just absurdly unlucky," Partner and Executive Creative Director Maggie Winters says about what happened one year and three days after the shop hung out its January Third shingle. "We had a flourishing new creative agency and a name which, to us, felt like a fresh start. And then the insurrection happened."

Most ironic of all, the Beltway-based shop had explicitly avoided politics, focusing instead on mainstream consumer brands like Lufthansa Airlines, Nike, Revature and The Motley Fool.

"In D.C., it's easy to get sucked into politics and government," explains Zach Goodwin, partner and Executive Creative Director. "We always made a point of not working in politics. And then it came to us in this bizarre, totally unpredictable way."

Check out the name change sizzle reel if you want to learn more about the name change.