Top Advertising Agency in San Francisco and Los Angeles

A four-time Ad Age Agency of the Year, we work with companies wanting more and better for their brand and business. Amid a sea of sameness, we help organizations unearth, unfurl and unleash truly distinct positioning. READ MORE

We help new brands launch, but, more often, established brands relaunch. Sometimes it’s as agency of record. Sometimes it starts with a project. But, either way, it’s a job we take with utmost seriousness. It might be the only thing we take with seriousness, utmost or otherwise.

Working together, we can make your brand stand apart from the competition, recognize quantifiable enterprise value and grasp that holiest of grails: a unique spot in your target’s gray matter.

Work + News

female presenting person wearing teal shirt and white e.l.f. branded face mask, holding orange pumpkin while sitting inside pop-up vehicle with purple sparkly wall behind her with the words

e.l.f. 2020 Halloween activation

Duncan Channon’s LA team kept the halloween spirit alive by bringing a spooky holiday pop-up straight to beauty influencers’ homes.

Animating anti-smoking

The spots are animated. The struggle is real. True tales of former smokers on the perilous path to quitting.
Female identified person with short-cropped brown hair, holding a baby to her chest. DC and Covered California Logos overlay the image on left and right, respectively.

Covered CA on Adweek’s cover

DC is thrilled to announce that we were awarded the five-year, $400-million Covered CA account. We are resolute in helping at this crucial time when more Californians need coverage than ever.

InnovAsian: The Next Generation

DC is back with seconds of our award-winning, supply-chain-busting InnovAsian Occasion campaign now running on stations across the nation.

“They can’t take your ballot”

At a time of unprecedented voter suppression, the mission of Vote From Home 2020 is more essential than ever. Our new “Suppress This” campaign helps them get ballots into the hands of disenfranchised voters of color. You can help, too.

This way to health insurance

Today marks the launch of our first campaign for Covered California as part of a five-year, $400-million effort to help all Californians get the health insurance they need.

Beautyscape influencers launch e.l.f. collection

It’s a beautiful day at DCLA with the launch of the e.l.f. Cosmetics Retro Paradise collection — the new collection from e.l.f.’s Beautyscape winners Alissa Holmes, Diana Curmei, Elicia Aragon, Jessa Green and Valeria Loren.

CBS x Alfred Coffee · Emmy Awards

DCLA partnered CBS Studios with Alfred Coffee to reach Emmy voters and garner support for Star Trek: Picard. The timely work tapped into the diversity and inclusion central to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision.
Two female presenting teens are at a table in a school library. One female with dark curly hair is sitting down with her back to the frame. The other is standing over the table with SweeTarts gummies in both hands and smiling.

SweeTARTS' Be Both is back

After the sweet success of last year’s 'Be Both' launch, SweeTARTS is doubling down on the campaign to Gen Z with brand new work in market now — and more to come in 2021.
Female presenting influencer posing for the camera in a sleek white blazer and leather black pants. She is confident and raises her hand to perfect her long brown hair that is styled in a middle part and she's wearing make-up that accentuates her strong features. She's in front of a mirror with a table with SGX NYC products.

SGX NYC · #hairgoals

SGX NYC wanted to increase awareness around winning two Allure Best of Beauty Awards and reinforce the brand’s positioning with cost-conscious consumers looking for premium products. We hit the bullseye with three well-known #hairgoals influencers.

Nicotine equals brain poison. Two images in a grid. Image to the left is the campaign example featuring two male presenting teens with their heads down smoking a vape pen with a copy overlay that reads Nicotine equals brain poison. The right image is the gold Clio award on a black background.

Nicotine = Brain Poison = Clio

Our work for CTCP has awakened parents to the teen vaping epidemic and won a slew of awards in the process (not nearly as important, but nice). The latest is that most venerable of ad accolades: the Clio.
Birds eye view over a male presenting young adult on the fire escape playing a guitar. Next to him is a notepad and pen and lush green plants creep into the frame. He appears relaxed as he plays his guitar.

Citi · Citigrammers

Citi wanted to increase awareness and favorability on social media, particularly within the music and dining categories. We assembled a team of influential visual artists to create the sort of shareable content the brand couldn't.
A grey-blue background with a circle of screenshots of various people speaking in a video conference call. In the center of the screenshot is text in white text letters that reads “Work Together.

Million-dollar talent from Upwork

To support COVID-19 projects, Upwork is donating a million dollars of time from their network of independent professionals. And who better to tell us about it than the pros themselves?
Diverse group of individuals and posing for the camera during the Coachella Music Festival. They are all self expressive through their make-up and fashion choices. Their individuality shines through as they each pose in their own unique way.

e.l.f. Cosmetics · Coachella

e.l.f. wanted to launch Beauty Shield, an all-new skincare line powered with antioxidants and SPF to help protect your skin against environmental aggressors. DCLA provided the perfect testing ground.
Grid image of 20 US employees on video conference call together. They are diverse in their age and their genders. They all appear smiling and some chatting like they are familiar with each other and enjoy working together.

Cotteleer in Campaign US

DC’s chief experience officer speaks with Campaign about the virtual world and how COVID-19 has actually brought DC’s SF and LA offices closer.
Action shot of a pink nike shoe as it hits the concrete. The person wearing the shoe is running. A pink Rakuten logo appears above the shoe as if it popped out from her shoe indicating the runner is a Rakuten user.

Rakuten

Loyalty or discount program advertising often dwells in the downscale world of the coupon clipper — a turnoff to savvier online shoppers. Our strategy was to present Rakuten as every bit as premium as the brands it offered rebates on.
A mother of two lays in a hammock in her backyard. In the hammock with her is her two children. She appears a strong mother balancing work and motherhood. Her two daughters are smiling.

Empowering the pandemic parent

Amy, along with our CEO Andy, talking to MediaPost about the agency’s support plan for working parents suddenly at home with kids.
A group of male presenting individuals are sitting on a living room couch laughing and enjoying a meal together. They appear to be enjoying quality time together over a nice meal. There are takeout boxes on the coffee table.

Grubhub

While the competition focused on transaction and technology, Grubhub really understood the near magical moment that occurs when the “food’s here.”

ADWEEK. A scene from the Disney movie Frozen. Elsa, Anna, Olaf, and Sven are posing on a purple background.

Cotteleer talks COVID-19 in Adweek

As we seek to chart our way through the uncharted, DC’s Amy Cotteleer shares her thoughts on brands’ best course of action during the pandemic.
Image headline reads: One Juul Pod Contains the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. The words “I just smoke at parties.” is written several times with words “at parties” crossed out so it reads, “I just smoke.” Two people are sharing a e-cigarette. They appear intoxicated and dazed.

California Tobacco Control · Social Smoking

Daily smoking has been on the decline for decades and yet casual smoking is actually on the rise. How do we get at-risk groups to see social smoking for what it is: plain old dangerous, unhealthy smoking.
Black Forest, so juicy, so good. The Black Forest logo appears with a red gummy bear hanging over the top. In the background is a lush green forest. Sunlight peaks through and shines on a patch of green plants.

Another sweet new client

If you missed it in Adweek and Ad Age, DC went to the Black Forest and hit the gummy bear motherlode.
A gold beer can with the black and gold designed Brewlab label on a white background. The label is fully rolled out as an image so you can see all the design elements and text that appears on the label. The label is black and the text is gold and white.

Redhook Brewlab

Craft beer is like indie music. If you get too popular, you’re no longer cool. Just ask Redhook. In the early ’80s, they took off like a rocket, Anheuser Busch came calling and the brand was labeled a sellout. “Budhook!” the beer nerds snickered.

Upwork goes nationwide

This week marks the launch of Upwork’s first national campaign. Broadcast TV, digital video and radio show us how all our offices could, in fact, be much larger than we realize.
Grid image with two images. On the left is the Udemy logo, a burgundy background with a big letter “U” in white. The image on the right is a female presenting person in their twenties. She has several deserts in around her as she is sitting at a table with a slicing knife. She appears to be in mid sentence as if she is demonstrating something on the topic of baking.

Udemy

DC developed a stylish back-to-school look for this growing learning platform. A new brand identity and comprehensive visual system celebrated the diversity of teachers and students and brought humanity to a previously transactional-feeling platform.

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Services
While we call ourselves an advertising agency, we help clients in ways that deliberately stretch that definition. Across our two offices, we offer advertising creative, brand strategy, ID, digital, design and UX, media strategy, planning and buying, social influencer and experiential.
Strategy
  • Brand
  • Communications
  • Social
Creative
Media
  • Planning
  • Buying
  • Analytics
Duncan Channon’s experiential and influencer practice

Led by industry pioneer Amy Cotteleer, DCLA was building experiential and influencer campaigns long before they were even called that, creating award-snagging, KPI-busting work for Levi’s, Citibank, Nintendo and Netflix. Find out how DCLA could be the x factor for your brand.

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Diversity has become a buzzword
We are invested in more than that. We're not only dedicated to hiring people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, but also those with different identities and expressions, disabilities, ages and body sizes. And we’re focused on retaining them by fostering a culture of belonging, safety and open dialogue. While we pride ourselves on creating effective work for our clients, we do so knowing full well our role in shaping culture. So we see it as our responsibility and obligation to ensure we're producing content without excluding segments of the population or perpetuating stereotypes.
Awards
Our Internet overlords tell us you guys all search for “award-winning ad agency,” so we put a sampling of said awards across disciplines right here to appease their robots. View All Awards
Four-time agency of the year
SF Addys best in show
Best media plan, O'Toole award
Global best of show
Campaign of the year
Winner
Best in show, Modern Healthcare Awards
Image award
Design and interactive
Advertising and interactive annuals
Top 10 digital agencies
Social media leader award
Campaign of the year
Best use of social media
Influencer program, Gold
Promotional top shop
Client experience
In over two decades, we’ve worked on nearly every category in the known universe. Below are current clients along with blasts from the past. If you don’t see a particular category, ask us. Our designers could only bear to put so many logos.

I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.