Production has long been part of Rethink’s business. Now the independent creative agency is making it a priority.
The agency has appointed Jon Legere to the new role of chief production officer. Legere spent 14 years at Anomaly, where he built and ran Unreasonable Studios, the agency’s in-house production arm. At Rethink, he will scale production capabilities across advertising, PR, and design, reporting to global chief operating officer Caleb Goodman.
Legere’s appointment is designed to embed production into Rethink’s workflow from the start rather than treating it as a downstream function. “Production these days is too important to sit at the end of the process,” Legere told ADWEEK. “By creating this role, it’s a real sign that it’s just as important to be right at the beginning.”
Goodman said the hire was driven by an “unmet need” he has observed across the industry, both among clients bringing production in-house and agencies struggling to adapt their own models. As Rethink has expanded its practice areas, he sees an opportunity for production to operate not as a siloed unit, but as an integrated service offering that runs through all of them.
“There’s just some amazing outcomes for our work and for our clients in doing that,” Goodman said.
At Unreasonable Studios, Legere oversaw operations across studios in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Goodman said he is one of the few people who has successfully built high-quality production at scale inside an independent organization. Legere also had a front-row seat to what happens when an indie gets absorbed into a holding company, after Anomaly was acquired by Stagwell, an experience Goodman said brings useful perspective to Rethink’s own journey.
For Legere, Rethink’s independence was the draw. “The fierce independence and commitment to its culture and putting ideas first is rare,” he said. “That freedom is essential to the future of production.”
That independence also shapes how Rethink thinks about production versus the in-housing trend sweeping the industry. Legere was careful to distinguish between the two: Internal production capabilities solve different problems than external partners, he argued, and best-in-class external talent will always have a role.
AI investment is already woven throughout Rethink’s process, and Legere sees production as uniquely positioned to introduce and integrate new tools across the agency as they emerge.
