Manhattan-based OpAd, a woman-owned advertising agency whose work ranges from Broadway to hospitality and healthcare, has acquired the Broad Agency, a woman-owned agency in Philadelphia.
The expansion by 1450 Broadway-based OpAd, led by CEO Chelsea Derrico, comes against the backdrop of a small, but growing number of ad agencies owned and led by women.
OpAd, which includes a vast majority of women on staff, in April closed on the acquisition. Broad will continue to operate in Philadelphia as an OpAd-owned company.
OpAd has placed more than a billion dollars of media in the New York area market and won MediaPost’s 2024 and 2025 Media Planning and Buying Award Winner for Public Service.
Founded in 2004, with offices in Manhattan and Albany, OpAd specializes in media strategy and buys done in partnership with in-house creative departments and agencies.
The deal with the Broad Agency, founded in 2021 by Kristen Sachs and Hannah Dillon, brings the founders on board as well as contract workers for specific projects.
Broad gives OpAd a 360-degree ability, letting it not only partner, but provide a full package of advertising services from design to strategy and execution.
“We have an ‘it takes a village’ mentality,” said OpAd CEO Chelsea Derrico. “Aligning yourselves with those who can complement and amplify. It’s not just one plus one equals two, but three or more.”
The Broad Agency founders see the acquisition as a way to grow their resources and reach. “We’ve built something we’re incredibly proud of, and now we get to take it further,” Kirsten Sachs said.
Hannah Dillon sees this as an opportunity to “build work that is not just well made at launch, but well cared for as it lives in market.”
OpAd has done work for companies such as Wodify, Gravity Haus, Brandywine Realty Group, Spread Bagelry, Project Bread, Tantos and many more.
The company worked on strategy and placed TV buys for ads produced by Arthouse for “Death of a Salesman” and has done a wide range of work for the New York City and New York State Departments of Health, including Covid vaccination, U.S. Census and many others.
“Things are evolving in the industry,” Derrico said. “There’s more growth with independent woman-owned agencies.”
Mad Men to Ad Women
Women’s role in leadership at ad agencies has long been an issue in an industry that inspired the TV show “Man Men” where most employees are female.
Statista cites a 2023 survey showing 69.5% of members of the Association of National Advertisers in the United States identified as female. Meanwhile, about 30.3% are male and 0.2 % are non-binary professionals.
The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) in 2022 estimated 40% of U.S. businesses are owned by women.
Less than one percent of the 22,000 ad agencies in North America that year, however, were owned by women or nonbinary people, according to the American Advertising Association of America.
That, however, has risen to nearly 4%, based on data from a recent women’s advertising summit held by Own It, a collective of female and binary advertising professionals.
Women-owned agencies include some with emphatically female first names, such as Dame Creative, We Are the Board and BeautifulBeast.
Others include Partners & Napier, Highdive, Murder Hornet, Grace Creative, Erich & Kallman and FIG.
“Women are rightfully stepping forward to boldly lead this industry into the future,” Jean Freeman, CEO of Zambezi, one of the larger women-owned ad agencies, told Own It.
More than half (60%) of Fortune 500 chief marketing officers as women, according to the American Marketing Association.
“New York State achieved a record breaking over 30% utilization of MWBE’s over the last five years, $3.3 billion last year, the highest in history for contacts to MWBE’s in New York State,” Empire State Development CEO and Commissioner Hope Knight said. “We’ve been able to cut red tape in the application and review process.”
Derrico said certification only helps get work initially. “The certification is there. It’s not the driver,” she said. “We stand on our service and capability to meet the requirements of respective contracts.”
Their company appears in directories for those who need to meet hiring requirements. They in 2023 were certified on the federal level.
Derrico believes creating a good workplace is a key step toward creating good work. Staff typically spend half their time in the office and half remotely.
OpAd and Broad both do business related to tourism, hospitality and other key industries. “It felt like the overlap was strong in the areas that matter most,” Derrico said.
OpAd developed a strategy and placed Covid vaccination ads, as well as ads for other health issues. “We’re incredibly proud of being part of a response team to make sure communities have the information they need,” Derrico said.
They also worked on the Census, using a dashboard with real time data and analytics to target “under participation” to pinpoint and prioritize different zip codes at different times.
In addition to financial and legal clients, they have done work for Feld Entertainment, helping market Disney on Ice, Monster Jam and Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
“They have robots now, so much happening on many stages during the show,” Derrico said of the shift from animals. “To be part of that evolution was fascinating.”
Broad is actually based on Broad Street in Philadelphia and OpAd is based on Broadway in Manhattan.
“We’ve called ourselves the broads of broadcast for years,” Derrico said of the match. “It felt serendipitous.”
