A Creative Agency in Washington, DC — Building Next Year's Biggest Brands

Washington, DC Is Having a Creative Moment

We founded This January in DC because we believe the next wave of great American creative work doesn’t have to come from the same three zip codes it’s always come from. This city is full of ambitious people building ambitious things across the DMV and beyond. That energy is the reason we’re here, and it’s the reason we think DC is where the next great creative agencies will come from.

Our clients have a worldwide footprint, but our home is Washington, DC. And we’re building something here that we think is worth watching.

What We Do

We’re a full-service advertising agency with integrated creative, production, interactive, and media departments. That means we can take a brand from strategy through campaign launch through media placements — all under one roof. Here’s what that looks like:

Brand Identity & Strategy. We build brands from the ground up — naming, positioning, visual identity, messaging framework, and brand asset libraries. We’ve done this for VC-backed startups before their first launch, for mid-market companies that have outgrown their original identity, and, famously, for ourselves. Brand engagements typically run 10–16 weeks.

Integrated Campaigns. TV spots, pre-roll, out-of-home, social, display — we concept, produce, and place it. We produced a distracted driving PSA for America’s wireless companies that ran in 400 local markets. We built a campaign for the Spy Museum that increased ticket sales by 31%. And we’ve created B2B brand awareness campaigns that repositioned companies ahead of national launches and hit record conversion numbers.

Media Strategy & Buying. Our in-house media department is built for brands that want a senior team optimizing weekly — not a deck of charts every quarter. Because our creative and media teams sit next to each other, the strategy and the execution are built together from day one.

Web Design & Development. UX, interactive strategy, UI design, front-end and back-end development, e-commerce. We build sites that are extensions of the brand, not afterthoughts.

Content Production. Pre-production through post. Film, photography, motion graphics, edit, color, and finishing. We’re obsessed with craft — and we’ve found that obsession lets us deliver exceptional production at budgets that might surprise you.

What kinds of companies does This January work with?

All kinds, honestly. We’ve found that the common thread isn’t industry or size — it’s appetite.

Our client roster includes airlines, cannabis and wellness, financial services, commercial real estate, museums and cultural institutions, CPG, tech and talent, and consumer brands. We work across B2C and B2B, with public companies and startups, with organizations in DC and across the country.

Our favorite clients are the ones who are ambitious about their creative — companies that want work good enough to earn attention, not just buy it. They tend to be challenger brands, companies in the midst of a rebrand or repositioning, or organizations preparing for a moment that matters (a launch, a fundraise, a market expansion).

We also have a particular love for brands in categories that make other agencies nervous — regulated industries, taboo products, complicated stories. We wrote a piece for Muse by Clio called “Let’s Sell Drugs (and Sex, Too)” about marketing in those spaces, and it’s still one of the best summaries of how we think.