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In May, New York City-based creative and production studio Versus announced that the creative duo of Rosie Garschina and Kevin Anderson had joined its ever-expanding team. Versus has dedicated itself to finding solutions for brands that extend seamlessly across all platforms – a logistically challenging task that Garschina embraces with enthusiasm.

Garschina joined Spotlight to discuss her passion for developing brand systems that scale globally, how she views her role as a creative director and why she felt like Versus was the right place for her right now. 

Spotlight: You've worked with [Versus Executive Producer] Kevin [Anderson] for a long time and now you’ve joined Versus together. What's the history of that, and why do you work so well together? 

Rosie Garschina, executive creative director, Versus: We’ve created a great shorthand for ourselves, so we're able to jump into things very efficiently, and we know the other person’s rhythm very well. We're able to lock in very quickly. 

Spotlight: How do you divide your duties between you?

Garschina: He's on the production side, so he's handling client engagement, bidding, production. I'm on the creative side, so I'm leading the creative and leading the teams.

Spotlight: What lured both of you to Versus? 

Garschina: The diversity of the disciplines, the skill sets and the variety of the work. It gives us the opportunity to tap into different ways of approaching client relationships, and it makes those relationships more impactful. There's experiential, there's live action, there's originals. We have creative technologists building bespoke tools. It’s all here and that adds a level of richness to the work that I think is beneficial and additive overall. Every single discipline is staffed by an expert.

Spotlight: In today's world, I feel like everybody has to be able to attack everything from a 360 point of view. What makes Versus different in that capacity from a typical creative agency?

Garschina: I think there is that constant, deep cross-functional collaboration from the start. When an engagement or an opportunity comes in, we're looking at it from every angle. It may come in under a specific discipline, but there's immediate conversation around how we can tap into it in other areas. 

These organizations are large, and there's so much cross-pollination in terms of the relationships, in terms of the history, that that constant dialog about how to activate other areas of the client's needs is ongoing. It's truly integrated in that way, and it allows every idea to be amplified. Because technology is changing so rapidly, and clients' needs are changing so rapidly, we're always learning from one another because we're in the room watching each other build and make things. That's also something that's very unique about Versus. We have physical space where I can walk by and look at software that's being built. I can figure out how to integrate that into a campaign that I'm currently leading. We're constantly learning from one another. 

Spotlight: Is there any formalization of that practice? When you have a client come in, do you have a launch meeting where everyone gets a chance to look at what's coming and think about how they might be able to integrate it into their specialty, or is it more casual than that, like you have conversations in hallways as you're passing by each other?

Garschina: It's more formal. There's obviously a kickoff. It's an initial client call. There's a brief that's delivered to us that we're responding to, or an RFP that we're responding to, and then there is a meeting where everybody gets on the call. Every single discipline will get on the call, and people will brainstorm. If anybody has time to chip in, they will throw ideas in. We'll have very collaborative docs running, live documents where people are feeding ideas to one another, and then there’s open sharing that happens, and that's usually if there's a new client or if there's a pitch. There's always one touch point where every member of that discipline is involved and has visibility.

Spotlight: It also sounds very intentional, which I think is unique too. 

Garschina: So many different brands are scaling in so many different unique ways that we may be doing a campaign for this brand in one department and an activation for the same brand in another department. We also might be talking to the ad sales team. Everyone is so seasoned in their specific lane. They all have a rich history in the industry, and they all have a huge rolodex of relationships. We've all worked with similar people, and so there is a lot of open sharing of those relationships, and how to activate against different client needs. It's very collaborative, and that’s also a testament to leadership bringing in the type of creatives that they have brought in. Everyone wants to make sure that everyone else does well, and there's just really open, collaborative sharing. It's quite unique in that it doesn't feel competitive. It feels like we're all trying to help one another, but everyone is so different. 

What's also fantastic is that you have these people who are very technical, others that are very conceptual, and others that are very devoted to craft. I think that level of expertise compounded with that amount of collaboration is really special.

Spotlight: Something you mentioned earlier was about brands needing scale. I feel like achieving scale today is a lot harder than it used to be. When you guys are looking at acquiring scale for clients, how do you go about it?

Garschina: I like to create something called consistent flexibility, so that the systems are nimble enough that they can scale natively, but they're also consistent in terms of that connective tissue across the ecosystem. Consistent but flexible is the goal with everything. If we're looking at TikTok, if we're looking at Instagram, if we're looking even at linear, if we're looking at physical spaces, if we're looking at print, there has to be a connective tissue throughout everything, while the creative also lives natively within those platforms.

I think collectively we've all been able to zoom out enough to know where to index and invest our time. The efficiencies that we're creating in production and through that cross-pollination of learning has allowed us to figure out where we can create efficiencies so we can spend more time ideating and talking about concepts, and then spend more time on the level of craft we want to bring in. 

Spotlight: What does an executive creative director do, and what are the skills and talents needed to be a good creative director?

Garschina: I am really in service of making breakthrough, memorable, consistently applied creative. I need to make sure that I’m activating and articulating visually and verbally. However, the mission of whatever brand I'm in service of, and whatever client I'm in service of – that's the external marching orders. Internally, my role is to keep the team inspired to make sure that we are moving in a way that is within budget and on production schedule. That we are handling all the practical day-to-day things that require us to be in constant collaboration – thinking about things like  how creatives work with production artists to how production artists work with producers and how producers work with new business people. That kind of cross-disciplinary conversation always needs to be happening. 

From a creative standpoint, I have to make sure that the work is emotionally resonating while remaining in service to the business needs and the mission of the client and of the brand. I need to make sure I am responsible for answering to the client and servicing them in a way that is going to make the client come back and feel they have been supported and seen and felt and heard. It's a relationship business, but it's also making sure that that brand is being activated and expressed in a way that is speaking to that audience most efficiently and effectively. 

We're so saturated right now that things have to be memorable. They have to break through. Whether it's an emotional feeling that you have when you connect with a piece of work, it has to be something that is going to resonate. 

Spotlight: I want to talk a little bit about a specific campaign, just so we can put some of these concepts into something concrete. I'm going to start with the Audible’s full-cast recordings of the Harry Potter series. They did an amazing Instagram campaign in which they captured the actors, reading their parts and talking about the series. How did you determine how you were going to be able to best capture and use that content? 

Garschina: These organizations have media buys, and they take a lot of time to determine a strategy about what placements on what platforms are going to make the most impact. Our job is to make sure that when we are placing that media in that specific location, it’s going to garner the most positive engagement. 

When we were shooting the talent in London for Harry Potter, we had to make sure that specific pieces of the IP were being spoken, specific pieces of the script, so that what resonates with fans was surfaced. We needed to make sure that specific character voices would be recorded and be part of the edit. Our job was really to hone in and focus on that. We needed to know the type of media we were producing, where it’s going to live, the IP that we were leveraging, the fan base we were speaking to. And then we dove in and figured out how we could leverage all of those things together. 

The Harry Potter franchise is one of the richest stories you can tap into. But you have to be smart about what characters and storylines you are investing in, making sure that these are the ones that are going to get the most engagement. That particular part of that campaign was very targeted, and it continues to be targeted and placed to this day. 

Spotlight: You also have worked with such large corporate brands as Amazon, Apple, NBC and many more. How do you go about creating work for them that creates similar passion in people? 

‍Garschina: There's always going to be passion to unlock. Part of it is expanding that reach and engagement and looking at different audience segments and how you can reach new audiences. That's a huge part of it, and I think you have to be very strategic about it. 

You also have to look at the broader scope of that segmentation and make sure you're not alienating that base, you're not alienating the foundation of that brand, that core audience, that core consumer, while simultaneously being able to grow into new arenas. I think one of the most exciting challenges about this type of work is the opportunity to create that balance. I find it exciting because it means that a brand has opportunity for growth.

‍Spotlight: Do you consider yourself a brand strategist and if not, how do you draw the line, since you spend so much time thinking about these things strategically?

Garschina: I don't want to draw lines. In some of these larger organizations, being able to provide the why behind the what is very helpful because those stakeholders are making decisions. Being able to explain the reason and the rationale behind that creative choice is very helpful. It helps people zoom out and look at the broader landscape and say, ‘this creative decision is being made with intention.’ 

You always want things to be beautiful and well crafted and emotional and to resonate and to have impact. But in some of these large organizations they really need to know what the thinking is behind these creative decisions because these executives need to get their boards to agree. These boards are very invested and they want to know what is happening and why. If there's investment that's being put behind a very singular change, they want to know ‘if I'm going to put a half a million dollars into this change, why are you changing it?’

Spotlight: What do you think brands need to do now to build identity systems across all of these platforms? Is there any sort of standard procedure or standard way of thinking about it in terms of building brand identities that can live across all platforms? 

Garschina: I think it's the consistent flexibility, being able to have that consistency so that it's memorable, but also flexible. It’s a balance of those two things – being able to provide the tools that can provide that, and making sure those tools are adaptable. We want to know when and where to pull those levers. What's going to stay consistent and what's going to change throughout all of this? Knowing when and where to pull those levers is what helps each brand do that. It's a conversation from the kickoff about what level of consistency they want and what level of flexibility they want, and how we can build tools to provide that.

Spotlight: How do you design experiential activations to ensure that they have impact for the brand while fitting into the overall brand mission? 

Garschina: Again, I think that comes back to the strategy behind the campaign and the media placement. For Harry Potter, for example, I was able to create a campaign design system that gave them that flexibility. The partners could come in and take the systems, designs and animations that we created and effectively scale them across activations, across large experiential placements. It's in the thinking behind that campaign design system that from a visual and verbal standpoint allows anyone to come in and say, ‘okay, we want to place this here. We have the tools, the flexibility and the layers necessary to be able to do this and tell the story.’ For Harry Potter, that was baked into the process. This campaign design system has to scale for six to 12 months. It has to have that level of detail and depth so that it can evolve and change. But there's consistency throughout all of it. 

Spotlight: I feel like you’re secretly also a systems designer because that’s what it seems like you love. 

Garschina: I love seeing systems scale, and have that longevity. It’s really powerful to see a design system that I've created wrapped around a train or take over Newark Airport, which is what Audible did with Harry Potter. They were able to completely wrap all of Newark Airport. It was able to completely wrap the S train. It was able to activate in subway stations in Europe. 

Seeing that level of scale and reach is super satisfying. It's so exciting to see the placements, to see something in SoFi Stadium, to see something in an airport, to be surprised. When we were doing Harry Potter, we had team members going on vacation and seeing the campaign around the city brought so much joy to them. They were taking pictures of it with their kids. They work so hard, and then they get to be physically inside of the work that they had a part in crafting. To go out in the world and to see your work is very satisfying. 

Spotlight: Is there anything you can talk about that you’re currently working on that you are excited about? 

Garschina: More campaign design systems, many of which are very similar to Harry Potter  in terms of needing to live in a stadium, a train or a very high visibility placement on Sunset Boulevard. How are we providing the tools and the depth of scale to be able to meet a media buy that is constantly evolving? I think that’s what’s really exciting. 

Spotlight: This is a question I like to ask because I find that creatives almost always have a really good answer to it. What is something creative that you've seen out in the world lately – and it can be from any genre that you want – that's knocked your socks off?

Garschina: There is an exhibit that I just saw in Paris by Fujiko Nakayo who is a fog sculptor. 

I went to this exhibit with my kids, and it was a timed exhibit, and you had to sit there and wait for it to activate. It's these fog sculptures and clouds that take over. It allowed everybody to be in this beautiful rotunda and to collectively experience it together, to wait for it and to have that level of interaction with the art and with each other. 

I think that level of interaction is what I find to be really exciting. The way that people are interacting with brands in physical spaces, and this is a beautiful artistic example of that. It resonated with so many different walks of life. There were people there who were retired, like Paris was on their bucket list, and they had family members taking photos with them in the fog. My kids were running through it, and the vapors from the fog took over, and your entire body was covered in water. It was very therapeutic and cleansing. 

This is just a more artistic, expressive way of creating something experiential, and everything was also photographable. They made sure to activate the space in such a profound way. I find it very satisfying to see all different walks of life interact with activations and experiences like this. It was a really memorable experience.