THIS JANUARY® is an independent creative agency built for next year. We create culturally relevant stories that resonate with real people across modern mediums — from OOH to TikTok.+++We grew up in the world of big, holding-company-owned advertising agencies. Places with offices in most time zones. Shops where a twenty-five-person meeting was most meetings.From the outside, there was a lot to admire about those agencies. The offices looked like you would imagine. There were grand, imposing conference rooms. There were encouraging murals on every floor.On the inside, though, the toll of the last three decades was unmistakable. By the time we arrived, every big three or four letter agency was owned by something still bigger — something far, far away. CPAs wandered the halls with grim expressions.Those holding-company-owned agencies were a fascinating paradox: they were enormous and always under resourced. They were obscenely expensive and forever broke. They were supposed to be shapers of culture and yet they felt fixed in amber in 1990-something.We saw what we did not want to be.This January is a modern advertising agency. We were founded on a simple conviction, firmly held: an independent, senior team makes better work. At our agency, the creative partners that founded the company work on projects — not pitches.We are obsessed with craft. It animates us, inspires us and keeps us up at night. We’re equally fixated on delivering the highest level of execution without outsourcing every frame to a London-based VFX shop or a Hollywood director between movies. We can do more with modest budgets.The world is full of the bland, boring and shoddily produced. We’re certain that interesting has better ROI. And we want to make it together.