Consider the ketchup stain. Ordinarily it is the least interesting moment in a meal: a red blot on a shirt, a groan, a trip to the sink. In the hands of Current Global and its partners, the stain acquired a claims hotline, an application form, 57 categories of mishap and benefits worth as much as 1,000 dirhams. Heinz Ketchup Insurance was a joke with paperwork. That paperwork mattered. More than 3,000 people applied in one month. Heinz reported an 856 percent jump in engagement, along with increases in both value and volume sales in the UAE.
This is a useful way to understand Current Global. The Chicago-headquartered communications agency does the familiar work - media relations, social strategy, influencers, executive visibility, reputation, launches - but its memorable campaigns often have a physical or behavioral hinge. An audience is not merely told what a brand believes. It is handed something to do.
“The press release is rarely the product. The claim form, the race bib or the game mechanic is the product.”An operating principle visible across the work
The strange power of a functioning joke
The agency calls its approach earned-first. That does not mean earned media is the only channel. It means the central idea ought to be interesting enough to provoke conversation before paid distribution does the heavy lifting. The phrase can sound like agency varnish until you look at the objects.
For the Digital Public Library of America, The Banned Book Club used a reader’s location to open free digital access to books restricted nearby. Fresh Step’s Adopt-a-Stray placed replicas of real shelter cats inside the video game Stray, then staged a 48-hour Twitch event with gaming creators. Adoption applications rose 124 percent. Hidden Valley Ranch made a two-carat lab-grown diamond using carbon extracted from ranch seasoning and auctioned it for charity. Kingsford’s Preserve the Pit was more durable: a fellowship with grants and mentorship for aspiring Black barbecue professionals.
None of those ideas is simply a slogan. Each requires operations: lawyers, technologists, nonprofit partners, race organizers, game streamers, production teams or fulfillment. That is the difference between a stunt and a mechanism. A stunt asks to be watched. A mechanism asks to be used.
Two agencies meet in the middle
Current Global itself began as a merger. Current Marketing had launched in 2006 as a consumer boutique within Interpublic. Creation, based in Britain, brought corporate and technology experience. The firms collaborated for roughly 18 months and concluded that their footprints had little overlap. On April 1, 2019, they combined under founding co-CEOs Virginia Devlin and George Coleman. The new business started with more than 200 people across 30 offices, and management said no layoffs were planned.
The logic was almost suspiciously tidy: Chicago supplied consumer instinct; London supplied corporate and technology depth; an international network supplied scale. By 2025, consumer work still accounted for about half of revenue and corporate work roughly 30 percent. The client list has ranged across Applebee’s, BASF, FedEx, Fresh Step, Heinz, Hidden Valley Ranch, Kingsford, Motorola, Papa Johns, Pfizer and Sandvik.
That breadth places Current Global between the giant communications networks and culture-led independent shops. It can draw on the reach of The Weber Shandwick Collective while selling the focus of a midsized agency. Its services are bought as projects and retainers, not as a packaged software subscription. Prices and campaign budgets are private and individually scoped - important context for anyone hoping there is a menu price for making a condiment into a gemstone.
What changed when growth stalled
The neat merger story did not remove the usual agency pressures. After two years of fee-income decline, Current Global returned to modest 1.4 percent growth in 2024. A little more than half came from expanded relationships with existing clients including Applebee’s, Clorox and Shamrock Farms; new business included Pfizer, Ocean Spray, Perfect Bar and Credit One.
The organizational answer was not to make one agency pretend to be expert in everything. Current Group was created in 2024 to connect Current Global with health specialist dna Communications. In 2025, North American and UK health staff moved from Current Global into dna. The two names stayed distinct, but leadership, resources and strategy became more connected. CurrentWell, a combined consumer-health offer, joined dna’s scientific fluency to Current Global’s cultural storytelling. The correction is revealing: integration works best when specialties remain legible.
The race bib is the message
Runner 321, created with adidas and FCB Canada, offers the cleanest version of the model. The number refers to trisomy 21, the genetic cause of Down syndrome. The campaign asked major races to reserve bib 321 for a neurodivergent athlete. Chris Nikic, the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman, wore it at the 2022 Boston Marathon. By the following year, all six World Marathon Majors had reserved the number.
A logo placement disappears after the event. A reserved number can return every year. This is Current Global at its best: the symbolic gesture is also a procedural change. The agency has pursued the same logic internally through Accessible by Design, publishing practical guidelines with the PRCA. The checklist begins at kickoff - identify what must be accessible, brief creative and production teams, discuss any client costs - and continues through delivery. Accessibility is treated as part of making the thing, not repairing it later.
The part worth stealing
The spectacle is tempting to copy: insure the sandwich, mint the mayonnaise jewel, put the dog in a game. That is the wrong lesson. The transferable part is the sequence underneath.
A stain, an empty shelter, a blocked book or an absent runner is more useful than a broad “awareness” problem.
Create a claim, a pass, a fellowship, a reserved number or another device the audience can actually use.
Put comprehension, captions, contrast, formats and production responsibility into the brief before approval.
Count applications, adoptions, sales, participation and repeat use before celebrating the impression total.
It works when the mechanism is unmistakably connected to the product and the client can support the operation behind it. Ketchup insurance makes sense because ketchup spills. A fellowship makes sense only if money and mentors show up. A reserved bib requires races to change a system. Without that fit, participation becomes a novelty tax: expensive to produce, easy to mock and detached from the business.
There are also jobs for which earned-first is the wrong first tool. A regulated announcement, an urgent safety message or a campaign requiring guaranteed reach may need controlled distribution before cultural play. Current Global’s work is strongest when the audience has enough freedom to complete the idea. The company does not merely place a brand in a conversation; it leaves a well-designed gap for people to step into.
The agency’s recurring trick is not making brands louder. It is giving the public a small, specific role in the plot.
That may explain why these campaigns remain easy to describe years later. There was a diamond made of ranch. There were real cats inside Stray. There was a number waiting at the marathon. In a media business drowning in language, Current Global keeps finding nouns.