Veteran advertising creative leader Noel Cottrell is striking out on his own with a new agency, Murder Hornet, which he also envisions as a consumer brand down the line.

The South African-born, Atlanta-based Cottrell, a copywriter by training, was most recently partner and creative chair at Giant Spoon, which he joined last winter. His brief stint there followed three years as chief creative officer of VMLY&R Kansas City, Missouri and, before that, nine years as chief creative officer of Fitzco in Atlanta.

Murder Hornet, though, has been percolating for a while. After leaving VMLY&R in March 2022, Cottrell quietly spearheaded two projects under the Murder Hornet banner later in the year. He then accepted Giant Spoon’s offer—after connecting with founder Trevor Guthrie, who’d moved to Atlanta—only to realize later that his true ambition was properly committing to his own venture.

“I sat down in May or June and said, ‘What am I doing? I’ve got this runway. It’s never going to be this good again,’” Cottrell told Ad Age. “Every time I had drinks with the Giant Spoon guys, they talked about the hustle of when they started [the agency]. In 10 years, they’ve built something from nothing. That stirred my nostalgia for starting my own thing, too.”

Cottrell envisions a model for Murder Hornet that includes a small group of full-timers—he’s been interviewing people in recent weeks—along with bespoke teams he’ll pull in for different projects. He isn’t announcing any founding clients, though he is working with several brands on projects expected to launch in the fourth quarter. As examples of his approach, he points to his 25-year career thus far—as well as the two projects Murder Hornet did last year.

Those two projects were for SnapNurse, a real-time healthcare staffing platform, and for the New Georgia Project, a political group. For SnapNurse, Cottrell helped develop a desktop “SnapButton” to streamline the process of requesting nursing help. For the New Georgia Project, he worked on an influencer-driven get-out-the-vote campaign aimed at young Black voters, which included a song, video series, T-shirts, yard signs, bumper stickers and more.

For Cottrell, it’s all about creativity as disruption—building teams “to swarm on solving problems with the intent of making the audience feel anything but comfortable.” Even the violence inherent in the Murder Hornet name—which Cottrell’s wife came up with—is meant to signal an unsparing approach.

“A lot of us [who are starting agencies] are saying creativity is our differentiator,” Cottrell said. “For Gut, it’s about going with your gut. For Mischief, it’s being mischievous. Slap goes even further. We’re taking it to the logical conclusion—let's really be violently disruptive in our work.”

Cottrell also has a long history of working on breakthrough campaigns—from E-Trade’s talking baby, to Febreze’s “Breathe Happy” blindfold campaign, to Coca-Cola’s “1,000 Songs.” He also headed the Wendy’s account for two years at VMLY&R.

In addition, he’s co-founded agencies before. Early in his career, in South Africa, he helped launch Joe Public and FoxP2.

A consumer brand in the making?

Cottrell sees Murder Hornet as more than an agency, though. Part of what excites him about the new venture is seeing if he can use his skills to turn Murder Hornet itself into a consumer brand—something ad agencies have really never done.

“If I walked around [Atlanta’s] Ponce City Market and asked people, ‘Have you ever heard of Ogilvy?’ ‘Have you ever heard of Droga5?’ These are not household brands,” Cottrell said. “Why can’t I use my skillset of creating brands that have gotten incredible buzz—to create my own brand? Why can’t it be a Supreme or a Goop?” 

Cottrell said he’s inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk’s array of businesses, from wine to NFTs. Eventually, he envisions an Amazon Marketplace shop “where I could sell Murder Hornet beanies, gummies, chocolates,” he said. “What the hell, why not?”

As part of his planning for the agency, he’s already been strategizing how to seed the Murder Hornet brand with a group of “zealots” who could help make it famous.

“If you think about Liquid Death, it was the tattoo artists [who were the zealots]. They supplied Liquid Death to tattoo artists and built that brand from there,” Cottrell said. “Right now I'm trying to decide, what's my group of zealots who are going to get excited about Murder Hornet? What does Murder Hornet want to be besides an ad agency?”