The 30 most creative people in advertising under 30

Age: 23

Tolbert is the founder of Brooklyn-based pop-up shop agency Creative CNTRL, which specializes in retail activations.

Last May, the agency was the lead retail operator for the U by Kotex Period Shop, the world's first store dedicated to periods.

The company has also worked with brands including Yeezy Organic Valley, Ben's Cookies, and Everlane.

Age: 26

Wilkins has worked at Swift since 2015 and was recently promoted to become a senior writer on the Adidas account.

A recent piece of notable work was on Adidas Football, which looked to dispel preconceived notions of what women's sportswear should look like.

She previously worked on the Google and HTC accounts. 

Age: 26

One of Ström's standout pieces of creative in 2016 was actually a recruitment campaign for the agency. Round and Round, based in Sweden, was on the hunt for a native English writer, a challenge Ström responded to by creating "The Great Trump Escape," an open call for frustrated American creatives to submit their portfolios after Donald Trump won the presidential election. The agency received 857 applicants.

Ström also represented Sweden in the Young Lions in 2016 and was the copywriter on a campaign for Bigalcohol.Exposed, which targeted Chang Beer for advertising on sports jerseys that could potentially encourage children to drink earlier.

Outside of his work at Round and Round, Ström edits a magazine about Bandy, a winter sport played on ice.

Age: 29

I-Ping Chiang joined Cramer-Krasselt in 2015 where she has worked on brands including Nikon, NYRR, Benihana, and Stop&Shop.

She has also made headlines for her creativity outside of work, with the creation of the "Tortilla Towel" — a towel that looks like a tortilla — which was featured on CNN, Eater, New York Magaine, and elsewhere around the web.

Age: 23 and 24

Riddoch and Knowles' appointments at DDB in January marked their first ever full-time jobs.

But they have worked quickly to create hundreds of pieces of social and digital content, including McDonald's first Facebook Canvas ad unit.

In fact, their first ever client meeting was with McDonald's as part of DDB's (successful) new business pitch. They pitched their ideas to the global CMO and US CMO of McDonald's and some of the ideas in the meeting will be rolling out in 2017.

Age: 28

This creative duo joined M&C Saatchi London in 2015, having worked together for four years at FCB Auckland in New Zealand.

Notably this year, the pair launched an insurance app from Ageas aimed at young people called BackMeUp. For the launch film, they played on the fact that carefree young people without insurance are usually the people who need it most. 

The "Ocean Zorb" film was named as one of the "six best ads you didn't see this year" by "The Copyranter" Mark Duffy. David Reviews gave it a 5/5.

Age: 27

Drullinger is not just in charge of strategy for the agency's client roster, he also helps create ideas to help the company win new business.

Recently, for example, his tagline "Domestic. Not Domesticated" helped GSD&M become Dodge's creative agency of record and was adopted by the brand as its official slogan.

Drullinger was promoted from strategist to senior strategist in October 2016.

Age: 28

Clegg was recently voted "MVP" on Microsoft's Collective Project campaign, which earned the agency a Cannes Gold and a Bronze Lion. 

Last year, she was also listed as a One Show 2016 "One To Watch."

Clegg is currently working on a project for non-profit organization Susan G. Komen. The "More Than Pink" campaign has told a father-daughter cancer story using a "dual-sided parallel video" PSA and a 360-degree Facebook video.

Outside of her work at Possible, Clegg and her family created a board game startup called Misfit Toys. She also has a fun Instagram page called "headlesstalldom," a nod to the fact that she is 6'5".

Age: 29

Jensen has been working on the Nike Basketball account since September 2015. This year, his work on the brand has included a spot showing Kyrie Irving improvising on the basketball court and Questlove doing the same on the drums. Another well-documented marketing effort was Nike's "thank you" to retiring WNBA star Tamika Catchings.

Outside of his work at R/GA, Jensen also created a compelling film for The Rec League, starring high jumper Jesse Williams dubbed "Slow Clap," showing the athlete's dedication to the cause.

Age: 27

Gross was responsible for two of KBS' most high-profile pieces of work in 2016.

He helped launch the BMW M2 with a 360-degree mobile game called "Eyes on Gigi." Using their smartphones, users had to see in which M2 BMW had hidden model Gigi Hadid.

Gross was also behind the "Suite" film for Beautyrist Black, which enlisted the help of Tom Brady.

He was promoted to the senior art director role in March last year. He was previously art director. He also works on brands including JBL, Adopt US Kids, and Feed The Pig.

Age: 28

Torres and Lopez work across clients including Listerine, Google, 7-Eleven, Reporters Without Borders, and Rolex. They are known for signing off their emails with "Steil" and their main executive creative director calls them "Neilven Torpez."

The two creatives also cofounded Ad Bods, a Tumblr blog collecting shirtless photos of people in the advertising industry. For every like garnered, they donate a dime to the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Outside of his art directing work, Torres is a semi-professional ballroom dancer. Lopez is not.

Age: 29

Pernice is the sole senior producer and content director at Deutsch New York, developing work for clients including Busch, Shock Top, Green Giant, Acuvue, Sherwin-Williams, and Epiduo.

Outside of work, the film "Chasing Yesterday," which Pernice wrote, directed, and produced was released theatrically in June 2016. In 2015, it helped him pick up numerous awards including the Rising Star at the 2015 Canada International Film Festival and the Director's Award at the North Carolina Film Awards.

He's now currently working on two TV pilots and his next feature film.

Age: 28

Davie was promoted from strategy director to group strategy director in May 2016.

He now works on the Under Armour account. Davie recently worked on what Creativity Online described as a "rousing" campaign starring Steph Curry, showing how the basketball player always overcomes adversity to improve himself.

Davie was also a strategist on Coach's holiday ad, "Give Coach Or Else."

Age: 29 and 26

This creative pair recently jumped ship from Deutsch New York to Barton F. Graf.

In the past year they have picked up a string of awards. Their work on the "First Ever Pinterest Yard Sale" for Krylon won a Cannes Titanium Lion and was also recognized by the One Show, D&AD, Clios, and Shorty Awards.

The duo also won the US Young Lions competition in the print category, which earned them a trip to Cannes. They gave an in-depth interview about their experience to Adweek.

As well as Krylon, the pair also worked on the Purdy and Waterislife accounts at Deutsch.

Age: 28

Chatterjee joined Leo Burnett Chicago in January 2016 and works across clients including Brooks, Donate Life America, 53rd Bank, Samsung, Planters, and McDonald's.

He has picked up a haul of awards for his work this year including Clio Health Golds, Epica Awards Golds, Londer International Awards Silvers and Bronzes, Clio Awards Silver and Bronzes, and Cannes Lions shortlists.

A standout piece of work this year was "Your Name Saves," a campaign that showed signing up to the organ donor register can save eight lives.

Age: 29

This creative duo, known as "Curtis and Kong," joined Deutsch two years ago and have already developed campaigns for Nintendo, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Snapple, and Dr Pepper.

The agency said their work on the light-hearted "Make Time for Snapple" campaign — which reenacted Snapple Facts like the fact that bees are born fully-grown — delivered the highest ever return on investment any of the brand's campaigns have ever achieved.

They also worked on the third year of Dr Pepper's campaign starring Larry Culpepper. This year's iteration saw him visiting college football tailgate parties across the US. 

Elsewhere, Curtis and Kong were invited to join the first-ever YouTube Creative Hack in Singapore. Their task was to produce a six-second ad for Singapore's tourism board. The pair won first-place for a series of videos that showed fun activities to do that would give people "FOMO."

Age: 27

This year, Belozerova founded a record label for buskers called Sound of Change that gives street musicians the chance to distribute their music on iTunes, Google Play, and other streaming and download services. The project was shortlisted at Cannes and the musicians' songs have been played more than 95,000 times.

Belozerova also picked up a number of awards for "Get Lost. Get Natural," a creative project to promote Switzerland in Russia and show that the country is more than watches, cheese, and chocolate. 

Outside of her work at Possible, Belozerova is involved with the Handmade Charity, which helps children with special needs socialize with other children.

She's also a keen drummer.

Age: 27

This creative pairing had a busy year in 2016.

The two mostly focus on TBWA's Apple account and were on the creative team behind "Dillan's Voice," an ad that explained how a boy with autism used his iPad to communicate with people.

They also worked on the iPad Pro launch ad "What's a Computer." And they topped off the year with Apple's popular holiday spot "Frankie's Holiday," which has been viewed on YouTube more than 8.5 million times.

Outside of their Apple work, they also found time to create a hard-hitting film for OneLove about toxic relationships. 

Age: 28

Barak celebrated 2016 by picking up mutliple awards — including Cannes Lions, One Show Pencils, and ANDYs — for Volkswagen's Golf R launch campaign "Unleash Your Rrr."

The campaign is now archived at the MoMa in New York for pioneering the use of AI in advertising.

He joined Saatchi in 2016 and now leads creative on Toyota, across all platforms.

Age: 27 and 26

This Australian duo has created headline-worthy work in the past few months.

Standout campaigns have included their "Unacceptable Letters" campaign from April. The campaign aimed to show that one in five women are sexually assaulted in college and told stories in print and film about sexual violence in the form of "acceptance letters," as if the stories were coming from the college itself. 

They also created what they call the world's first product designed for Instagram: a square milkshake designed for the app's square format. The shakes, for Sonic Drive-in, were sold at Coachella through Instagram.

Both campaigns have been recognized in global awards shows including Cannes Lions. 

The pair has also been included in Adweek’s Most Creative People in Advertising and the San Francisco Egotist’s 32 under 32. In November, both the 3% Conference and the One Show named Petruccelli one of the top 10 Next Creative Leaders. 

Age: 28

2016 was a standout year for Marquardt, who moved from BBDO to join Goodby Silverstein & Partners as a senior creative in June.

He already produced some strong work at Goodby Silverstein, including Doritos "No Choice" campaign that saw the brand launch flavorless, crunchless chips to encourage young people to register to vote. Creativity Online placed it at number four in its list of the year's best print/OOH/design ideas. Marquardt also worked as the senior art director on the NYPD's "Invisible Faces" campaign that replaced the faces of mannequins in storefront windows with the faces of missing people.

At BBDO, Marquardt worked on one of the most talked-about print ads of 2016 — Snickers' "Photoshop-Fail," which appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. The campaign was shortlisted at the Cannes Lions, won Gold at the FAB Awards and was picked out by Adweek in its "20 trends that drove some of 2016's best marketing" roundup.

Outside of the day job, Marquardt has a number of creative side projects. Perhaps the most notable was his "#Help50Cent" tongue-in-cheek Kickstarter campaign that raised the bankrupt rapper an extra $271 and made the front page of TMZ.

Age: 28

Cumings celebrated 2016 with a number of awards for the campaigns she worked on, ranging from picking up a One Club "One to Watch" award, to two D&AD Pencils, a Gold Clio, and four Cannes Lions Bronzes.

Her most awarded work was for Expedia. The travel company partnered with St Jude Children's Research Hospital to take sick children on their dream adventures using a VR room.

Other brands Cumings has worked on recently include HP, Adidas, and Target.

Age: 28

Habana-Navarro has had a great 12 months. She was named the fifth most-awarded art director in Canada, she was selected as one of JWT's "Global High Potential" employees, and her projects picked up a number of awards including three Cannes Silver Lions and two D&AD Pencils.

The person nominating Habana-Navarro described her as: "A rocket, attached to a shooting star, attached to Jennifer Lawrence."

Recent work has included the award-winning SickKids "Just Another Day" film, a film for Mazda called "The Getaway," and a campaign for Dempster's, highlighting the brand's 100-year history.