MILKING IT: One of Wexley School for Girls’ signature ad campaigns was its five-year-long brand overhaul for Darigold, which included using Darigold’s truck fleet as rolling billboards.

This article appears in print in the April 2018 issue. Click here for a free subscription.

Whither creativity? The unexpected shuttering of Wexley School for Girls, one of Seattle’s more inventive advertising agencies, prompts the question.



The answer lies in a new reality for creative services practitioners. When it announced in January that it would cease operation after 15 years, Wexley cofounder Cal McAllister cited the tendency among corporate clients to keep a lot of creative work in house. Combined with the collapse of the ad agency Creature in 2016, Wexley’s unexpected demise during an economic boom shines a spotlight on rapid change in the ad/marketing sector.



Jim Copacino, founder and chief creative officer at the agency Copacino + Fujikado in Seattle, sees four key factors driving the move toward in-house creative work.