SpecialGuest

Aaron Duffy

Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director

Misfit

Aaron Duffy approaches advertising as an ongoing experiment. He rejects the traditional divide between “concepting” and “making,” insisting that production and creativity should be inseparable. His philosophy of production thinking runs through his entire career — from directing Google’s iconic Parisian Love and Chrome Speed Tests, which emerged from hands-on experimentation rather than strategic decks, to building SpecialGuest into a creative agency defined by making a strategy.

This mindset was risky at first. Launching an agency as a director seemed like a disadvantage — the industry often sees production as the “last phase” rather than the beating heart of creativity. But in time, Aaron discovered that clients were craving exactly this: ideas born from experimentation, prototyping, and craft.

For SpecialGuest, it means ideas that don’t just look like ads. It means creating a music video with OK Go where 30 robots held massive mirrors — doubling as a striking cultural moment and branded content for Ray-Ban Meta. It means designing an AI-driven experience for Rag & Bone years before AI became an industry obsession. It means working with clients who want their brand to feel alive in the real world, not just on a storyboard.

At its core, Aaron’s indie spirit is about believing that creativity happens in the making, not just the meeting. It’s scrappy, experimental, and independent — and it’s what sets him, and SpecialGuest, apart.

Aaron has always been an outsider in advertising — and that’s exactly why he’s been able to challenge its conventions. He never worked at an ad agency and never cared to learn how they operated on the inside. From his vantage point as a director, he saw both the brilliance and the limits of the system: creativity often felt too compartmentalized, too owned by one side of the process.

After winning Cannes Lions and VMA Moonmen, Aaron could have stayed in his lane as a decorated director. But awards weren’t enough — he wanted to be part of shaping the ideas and the strategy, not just executing someone else’s vision. At the same time, he had no interest in recreating the very agency model he saw as broken.

Instead, Aaron reimagined the relationship between client, agency, and production. He built SpecialGuest to be a partner that collapses the walls — where production thinking and creative thinking happen together from the start. For brands with strong in-house creative teams, SpecialGuest was never a competitor, but an amplifier. Google Creative Lab, Facebook’s Factor (now CX), and Snap’s internal agency all found in SpecialGuest a partner who respected their vision while bringing production excellence and fresh ideas to the table.

Aaron disrupted the industry’s paranoia around in-house agencies by embracing them. He recognized them as a positive evolution: more people, at more levels, directly contributing to creativity. SpecialGuest’s role was to throw gasoline on that fire — to help it burn brighter. The very name “SpecialGuest” captures this philosophy: never the star, never the threat, always the invited collaborator who makes the whole thing better.

Aaron hasn’t just carved out his own space in the industry — he’s built a home for other misfits and hybrid thinkers to thrive. SpecialGuest has become a launchpad for emerging talent, nurturing interns and entry-level hires into creative leaders. Executive Producer Andrew Geller, directors and creative directors Lake Buckly and Jo Gannett, Art Director Ward Kamel, and Senior Producer Lauren Marroz all began their journeys at SpecialGuest. Under Aaron’s guidance, they grew into hybrid makers who now lead massive campaigns with the same spirit of experimentation and independence that defines the agency.

His impact extends beyond people to technology. As cofounder of SpecialGuestX with Miguel Espada, Aaron has pushed into the frontiers of AI and robotics. SGX has created disruptive prototypes and helped partners like Google launch groundbreaking generative platforms such as FlowTV — years before “AI” became the industry’s buzzword.

Clients also feel the difference. Global marketing leaders like Shachar Scott, VP at Meta, call SpecialGuest “a truly exceptional creative agency and trusted partner” who can be relied on for the toughest briefs. Aaron’s independent perspective unlocks new ways of thinking, blending creative strategy with craft at every step.

And on the industry level, Aaron champions an approach that network agencies rarely deliver — especially in the tech sector. He treats the product itself as a creative partner, believing a great demo can be more powerful than any metaphor. For him, creativity shouldn’t overshadow technology; it should reveal it. This philosophy has consistently shaped how consumers see and love the products of some of the world’s most innovative companies.

Aaron’s independence doesn’t just serve him. It builds people, fuels clients, and nudges the entire industry forward.

When Aaron was in art school, he solidified his hands and feet in concrete blocks for 48 hours and went to classes along the way. He had a friend document the process and learned how to edit to create a video about the performance piece. For Aaron, this is the best work he has ever done and is always chasing what made that early experiment honestly special. There is a kind of unexpected, lateral thinking that is needed across the board in the industry and those ideas can’t be expected to come from strategy meetings expressed through slide presentations. They come from something real and weird. It’s why Aaron has been tapped by folks like Robert Wong, Marcus Wainwright, Shachar Scott, Damian Kulash and many more over the years.

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