Pereira & O'Dell launches in San Francisco

Pereira & O'Dell, a new digitally influenced advertising agency headed by P.J. Pereira and Andrew O'Dell, has launched in San Francisco.

The new agency will also focus on creating cross-disciplinary campaigns for its clients, which include Lego Systems and Pony International, the company said.

“First and foremost, Pereira & O'Dell is an agency that's founded in really substantial, solid strategy and creative offerings that can be implemented across any media, whether that's television, digital, print or radio,” said Andrew O'Dell, co-founder of the agency. “I think there's going to be a time very soon where you're going to stop having traditional agency conversations and digital agency conversations, and start getting back to advertising agency conversations.”

The agency currently consists of 15 employees, in addition to per-project hires. To start up, Pereira and O'Dell secured $30 million from the Brazilian-managed ABC International fund.

“Then, from that [funding] we have additional financing to go out and make some acquisitions, which is going to be the method of how we're going to fuel the growth and expansion of this agency,” O'Dell said. “There's the $30 million and the ability to call down another $70 million over the next three years if we need it.”

Pereira and O'Dell previously worked together at AKQA in San Francisco where they were the executive creative director and president, respectively. They left their old positions in mid-January to start up their new agency, which officially launched on April 9. O'Dell will lead the business side, while Pereira will focus on the creative.