This is HOO we are.
We’ve never quite fit in with that mindset. Our background is in editorial – where what matters is the story you’re trying to tell, the clarity in which you tell it, and the creative ways you get people to pay attention.
Rather than do the same old stuff like the same old people, we thought we’d go another way. That’s why we’re here. And hopefully, that’s why you’re here too.
Meet the Oddities
Sachini Imbuldeniya
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Oddity
There’s a big reason why I called our agency ‘House of Oddities'. It’s not because it’s one of the 0.01% of agencies owned and run by a woman of colour – possibly the most depressing statistic in the creative industry aside from ‘87% of advertising is ignored’.
I wanted to build a home for people who didn’t feel like they ‘fit in’ with the traditional creative industry mould. Maybe because until now I had never worked a single day in advertising.
I originally worked in editorial – like the majority of the HOO team – which has been pretty useful. Not knowing the ‘traditional’ ways of doing advertising means we’re free to break the rules. Why does it take 9 months and 100 people to make a 60 second TV ad? No idea. It shouldn’t. So we don’t.
In the newsroom you learn to work fast, to change as quickly as the news does. To react to the news cycle, to trends. We’ve learned how to fight hard to get attention from audiences. What they want to hear, and how to tell them the stuff they really don’t want to hear.
Editorial is read by millions, while advertising is ignored by billions – so we know how to make a big difference. And that’s what House of Oddities is. A place where difference makes a difference.
‘‘We’ve had to learn how to fight hard to get attention... it makes a big difference’’.
Smith
Oddity
Smith
Oddity
Leon
Gordon
Small
Revell
Haywood
Edwards
Producer
Non-toxic content.
We’ve been working in the creative industry a long time – over 100 years between us – and, when you’ve been around that long you start to notice some of the problems. And lets be clear – our creative industry has problems.
For some it’s a lack of diversity (it’s one of the worst industries in the world for women, people of colour, people with disabilities and people from working class backgrounds), or the toxicity of the workplace – where egos clash constantly and junior creatives are too often ignored.
That’s why we created HOO – a place that’s genuinely friendly, collaborative, positive, and diverse. We find it works better. And we hope you will too. Because the only way we can make this industry better... is by being better.
Green,
not mean
'We’re members of AdGreen and also a Responsible 100 Company. That means we follow the most sustainable practices when creating our work – from using local crews to reduce our carbon footprint to using electric cars to shepherd talent to and from our shoots.
Because being creative isn’t about solving problems in front of the camera – it’s solving all the ones behind it too.'
Diversity & inclusion done properly
You know how some agencies talk a good game about diversity, and then it turns out to be not quite all that? Well, we’re diverse (we can see you already thinking ‘you would say that, huh’). But, y’know, we actually mean it. That’s why we have committed to creating the most diverse production crews anywhere in the world, both in front of and behind the camera. Because that diversity means a fresh perspective. Which makes the work we do better. And we all want better, right? Right? Turns out for some people, they like the status quo just fine. Yawn. Whatever.
When we realised not enough people think like us, we figured we must be the weird ones. The misfits. So rather than change our beliefs, and do things the boring old ways everyone else does, we banded together instead. And so, the HOO was born. Welcome aboard.
