Drake Cooper Names Nick Hanlin Director of Growth
Powerhouse indie agency Drake Cooper is doubling down on its recent surge in business growth by hiring the veteran account management pro Nick Hanlin as its first Director of Growth. Named an Ad Age Small Agency Award winner in 2024, Drake Cooper has enjoyed record-setting success over the past several years, onboarding more national accounts than ever in its 46-year history, including Blue Diamond Almonds, Challenge Butter, Brookfield Properties, Chevron, and its subsidiary Texaco. A unique agency located in a unique place, Drake Cooper is 100% employee-owned and thriving in Boise, a booming outlier hub of creativity in Idaho’s Treasure Valley that boasts a vibrant art scene and entrepreneurial startup culture.
Hanlin brings a decade of account management and agency growth expertise to Drake Cooper. He began his career at McCann in New York as an Account Manager on their portfolio of Reckitt’s OTC products and transitioned to McCann Worldgroup’s Global Growth team, acting as a pitch manager across the agency network’s largest clients, including Coca-Cola, L’Oreal, Microsoft, GM, and more. After 3 years at McCann, Nick was recruited by Wieden+Kennedy in Portland to manage its Old Spice business, where he helped develop campaigns and led launches of multiple new product lines. He later bounced back to New York City to lead growth for famed Swedish-turned-global agency Forsman & Bodenfors before joining Drake Cooper.
“Nick’s experience across both account management and new business makes him the ideal fit for how we want to approach growth moving forward,” said Drake Cooper CEO Mindy Stomp. “We’ve been fortunate to experience strong organic growth, but as our momentum accelerated–especially following our AdAge Small Agency of the Year award–we knew it was time to appoint a dedicated owner of growth to fully capitalize on those opportunities.”
Agency President, John Drake commented: “Our team has always been at its best when we’re working with clients who possess strong desires for distinctive creative ideas that can be expressed across multiple mediums. Nick knows from experience–with Forsman & Bodenfors, Wieden, and others–how to tell that story and connect this type of client to our agency.”
After years of working for big players in the agency world, Hanlin, an avid outdoorsman, was excited to join an indie, especially one based in the wide-open spaces of the West. “It was a dreamy thing, coming to Boise, Idaho, to make national advertising. I wanted to be part of that. Culturally, the ad industry is pivoting from the influence of the coasts. Austin and Kansas are blowing up, Chicago is making a comeback. Idaho boasts the second-fastest-growing population in the country. Consumer and buying trends, and brand movements are following suit.”
Hanlin’s remit as growth officer is to connect with national and regional brands and help shepherd these clients through Drake Cooper’s creative processes. The shop has full-service capabilities, including strategy, creative, analytics, design, production, and media buying and planning. “Director of Growth is not a sales job,” said Hanlin. “It involves helping position the agency, evolving the Drake Cooper narrative, and being there for clients all the way through the marketing funnel, from outreach to outcomes. It’s a very entrepreneurial thing.”
In addition to pursuing national and regional consumer brands, Hanlin will work to continue burnishing the agency’s exceptional reputation for cause marketing. Drake Cooper has become widely known and respected for helping the Idaho Office of Drug Policy and the governor’s office launch a powerful campaign to combat the opioid epidemic. The agency created a series of gripping ads targeted to teens, young adults, parents, and caregivers, illustrating the stark reality of fentanyl overdoses. When it launched in 2023, the “Fentanyl: All It Takes Is Everything” campaign garnered more than 60 million impressions and delivered a 55% increase in fentanyl awareness among targeted young adults and teens. A new fentanyl campaign from the agency is currently in the works.
