Grace Francis, Jamie Mancini and Katy Collins have launched indie creative shop Wonderful Things, the trio exclusively shared with Campaign US.
The agency will focus on building physical and digital brand experiences. Visitors can engage with emerging technologies at physical pop-ups, while digital worlds will seek to emulate real-world spaces — similar to the Iran Prison Project, an interactive browser-based experience that used testimonies, original artwork, voice acting and AI to visualize the stories of political prisoners in Iran, which Francis and Mancini worked on at WongDoody.
Wonderful Things is open to experimenting with different technologies to create these experiences, though Francis noted generative AI will allow the small team to build variations of the same experience at scale.
“I’m particularly interested in blurring emergent tech and physical spaces for sports, entertainment and fast-moving consumer goods brands,” Francis said. “The ability to put things into the world that leave an emotional resonance feels like the only work I want to do.”
One of the agency’s first projects is building an experience for a game studio releasing a title that serves as a bedtime story. Wonderful Things also launches with briefs for a sports brand and a women’s charity focused on language, and is in early talks with an entertainment brand. Francis declined to name these clients.
“I always say ‘yes’ to any phone call because interesting things happen in different spaces but sports, entertainment, art, food and drinks are interesting because they’re very sensory experiences,” Francis said.
Francis, Mancini and Collins are Wonderful Things’ sole employees. Francis brings creative chops to the table while Mancini provides comms experience and Collins shares experiential expertise. Each has an equity stake in the company as founders.
For now, they’ll rely on freelance talent for various projects until they begin hiring. When Wonderful Things does open its doors to more employees, it will look for those with expertise in innovation, Francis said.
The agency is based in the UK but will operate globally.
“We’re really keen on being remote,” Francis said. “We love borrowing other people’s offices and camping out with clients … but because we’re borderless, we don’t know when we’re going to be in Paris, Cologne, London, New York and, let’s face it, sometimes Dayton, Ohio.”
Francis said the trio launched their own agency because there were few focused on building experiences that blend the physical and digital.
“We just really wanted to do this on our own terms,” they said. “It’s a massive privilege to take on the work that we want to and say no to the client that might not be the right fit.”
Francis and Mancini were previously at WongDoody, the former as global chief creative and design officer from March 2022 to June 2024, and the latter as executive creative director and global PR brand lead from September 2022 to June 2024. The duo also worked together at Accenture Song (then Karmarama) as chief experience officer and creative director, respectively.
Collins served at Forged and the Studio of Art & Commerce for the past four years. She also worked alongside Francis as the production lead for experiences and events at Droga5 from September 2018 to August 2020.
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