Day One Agency has built its reputation on the premise that attention can’t be bought – it has to be earned. At the helm is Josh Rosenberg, a communications strategist who co-founded the firm in 2014 to reimagine how brands connect with audiences in an environment where every creator, influencer, and platform competes for relevance.

Josh’s early career at M Booth & Associates shaped that vision. Over 12 years, he helped guide clients through the industry’s first wave of digital transformation, establishing the agency’s inaugural social media division. “Back in the day, we were always handed advertising and told to ‘PR this,’” he says. “But we had to ask, why will a consumer care? Why will they share?” Those questions, rooted in earned storytelling rather than paid visibility, became the foundation of his philosophy.

By the early 2010s, social platforms were reshaping the rules of communication, and Josh saw an opening for a model that merged creativity with credibility. “We saw an opportunity for an agency that really understood creativity and understood earned, and how we could put earned at the center of that creativity,” he says.

When he and his two co-founders left their previous agency, they had no clients, no staff, and no name. Then Josh came across an article about the “Day One mentality,” which emphasized curiosity, fresh thinking, and the energy of starting over. “That’s us,” he recalls. “We’re always thinking about what’s new, what’s next, how to stay fresh.” The founders registered D1A.com that same day.

More than a decade later, Day One employs more than 180 people across New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, serving clients including Chipotle, Nike, Converse, American Express, and e.l.f. Beauty. The firm’s growth has been guided by a single belief Josh often repeats: “Good work begets more good work.”

Storytelling as Strategy

Day One Agency’s focus on creativity has produced campaigns that often transcend marketing into pop culture. “Narrative is everything,” Josh points out. “We take a very strong editorial approach here, because journalists know how to take the complex and make it simple, and that’s what you need to reach consumers.”

In 2024, Day One Agency partnered with Pacifico on “Find Your Own Way,” a global campaign celebrating creativity, self-expression, and outdoor exploration. The social-first series invited audiences to embrace their own path, which aligned with Pacifico’s surf-inspired heritage and ethos of discovery. Developed to resonate across social and digital platforms, the campaign exemplified Josh’s belief that “what connects with a human is another human story.”

Another standout was “Spirit Halloween x Chipotle Boorito Costume Drop,” a collaboration with Spirit Halloween that reimagined Chipotle’s annual Halloween promotion for digital marketing. The partnership introduced limited-edition costumes inspired by viral menu items, merging creator storytelling with experiential and digital activations. The campaign generated more than 9.2 billion press impressions, 68 million owned impressions, and 3.4 million engagements, marking one of Chipotle’s most successful Halloween events to date.

For Josh, the success of these campaigns lies in identifying what he calls the “intersection between brand truth and fan truth.” According to him, “If you can connect the cultural insight to the consumer insight, that’s where you win. It’s about knowing your audience better than they know themselves, and earning the right to be part of their story.”

Day One’s approach to influencer work follows the same logic. “We don’t look at creator work as media; we look at it as creative,” Josh explains. “Brands are hiring creators because of the trust they’ve built with their audiences. When you take them too far from what their audiences expect, you lose that credibility. The sweet spot is when it’s brand right and creator right.”

Scaling Culture and Creativity

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Day One’s commitment to creativity was tested … and strengthened. Months before lockdowns, the agency hired a staff photographer to launch an in-house production arm. “Then COVID hit, and suddenly that photographer’s studio apartment in LA became our production hub,” he says. “We didn’t miss a beat when other agencies couldn’t shoot.”

That scrappy pivot became Day One Studios, a full-fledged production division now creating everything from TikToks to national television campaigns for brands like e.l.f. Beauty and Pacifico. The LA studio recently expanded as part of a broader push to integrate content production with cultural strategy.

“Being laser-focused on creativity has been how we’ve been able to scale,” Josh says. “We keep asking, ‘What new services help us deliver the work differently, but still nimbly?’”

Listening to the Next Generation

While many agencies talk about youth culture, Day One has made studying it part of its core business. In 2023, the company relaunched Ask Gen Z, a program connecting strategists with young consumers to understand their values and media habits. That initiative has since matured into Group Chat, a panel of 75 Gen Z participants across the U.S. who share real-time insights on culture, products, and brand perception.

This summer, Day One used the panel to conduct its “Fun Money Talks” report, handing each participant $100 to spend on anything that reflected how they express themselves. “It was interesting to us. It wasn’t about shopping or dining,” Josh says. “It was hobbies and personal development. Someone took guitar lessons. Someone bought a piece of meat to learn how to cook it right. It helped us understand how this generation thinks about self-growth.”

The agency’s research also informs client strategy. “We had a client launching a global ad campaign who wanted to test their tagline,” he says. “We asked our Gen Z panel, and the feedback helped shape the final creative that went to leadership.”

This year, Day One partnered with culture writer Casey Lewis on a new report titled “Tweenfluence,” exploring how Gen Alpha (the cohort following Gen Z) is shaping household purchase decisions. 

“What surprised us most was how much influence they have on their parents’ buying decisions,” Josh says. “Beauty products were big. ‘Sephora kids’ came up a lot. For boys, it was more about gaming: ‘Fortnite,’ ‘Minecraft.’ It’s fascinating to see how early digital influence starts.”

From Earned to Everywhere

For Josh, the creator economy hasn’t rendered agencies obsolete; instead, it’s made creative leadership more essential. “Being a creator today is a grind,” he says. “They’re writing, producing, editing, scaling. We can help them think about how to grow, how to find new audiences, and how to make their work sustainable long term.”

As creators gain more business acumen and self-management tools, Josh sees agency value shifting toward strategic creativity. “We’re going to continue adding value in the creative hook and the campaign,” he says. “That’s what helps scale stories and reach audiences meaningfully.”

Internally, Day One holds two non-negotiable principles: empathy and curiosity. “You need to be curious to succeed today,” Josh says. “Change is a given, as is chaos. How you navigate that ambiguity is through creativity and empathy.”

That philosophy has guided the agency’s consistent transformation. “We’ve had to reinvent who we are every six to nine months,” he says. “The media landscape moves that fast.”

Even with AI changing content production, Josh’s focus remains on distinctly human creativity. “There’s a lot of AI slop out there,” he says. 

Day One’s goal for the future, he adds, is simple: to keep listening, learning, and creating ideas that earn attention everywhere. “Every client wants an idea that connects to an audience,” Josh says. “For us, it always comes back to creativity and curiosity. Those are the things that keep us at day one.”