Hasta La Creative!

Ms. Johnson took over leadership of the creative department last year. Since then the agency has seen one of its most award-winning and creatively diverse periods, earning 13 Cannes Lions for five different clients. Among the standout efforts were ideas like Frito-Lay’s “Rainbow Doritos” supporting LGBT rights, a Dali Museum VR project that took viewers “inside” the artist’s paintings, the Ad Council’s “I Am a Witness” anti-bullying campaign, the stirring “Unacceptable Acceptance Letters” addressing rape on college campuses and Sonic’s “#SquareShakes” campaign, for which it tapped a chef to create specially-designed Square Shakes sold through Instagram. Ms. Johnson was also named to Ad Age’s Women to Watch this year.

“We’re kind of like ‘Law and Order: CSI’ — we’re ripping our plotlines from the headlines,” said Ms. Johnson of the agency’s approach. “We are pulling things that are happening in culture, and that’s driving the work that the company’s doing.”

Agency co-founder Jeff Goodby said Ms. Johnson’s promotion is simply a nominal recognition of what she’d already been doing since she stepped into her executive creative director role. “The thing that Rich and I did was three people in the room, whereas Margaret stepped in to run a big, world-class complex creative department,” he said. “We made it up as we went along, she had to do something much bigger right away. One of the great things about her is that she grew up with us and she understands the culture. Her changes have been much more understanding of the people and the traditions here.”

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