Big Bowl of Ideas is a cultural and creative public affairs production house, based in Los Angeles. We make the pursuit of social change hot. All day. We meet the challenges that non-profit organizations, foundations, governments and socially responsible businesses face in making their earnest goals relevant and popular to a multitude of audiences. Likewise, we work with artists, entertainment companies and cultural institutions work on meaningful social impact efforts. We thrive on those challenges, we stir things up and seek to innovate, all for the common good. We frequently work with communicators, leaders, organizers and C-Suite staff to build upon their solid messaging foundations and take that to a more creative and accessible place. We seek to start where targeted audiences are at and their means of communication — art, music, religion, sports, food, pop culture — and develop new ideas from there.
Founded in 2012, Big Bowl of Ideas is a dynamic, agile, and proudly Black-owned shop.
We are marketeers for justice and social change and we take that to heart. We are audacious enough to believe justice, progress, and social impact can be accomplished with flair, great art, popular wording and fresh boundary-breaking design.
While we can do what one might call ‘straight traditional communications’ our strengths are optimized when you want to do something different. This also means we work well with dedicated in-house teams of communicators for an organization or business. We like being partners with them to stretch and push the organization’s communications strategies into new directions.
We are the hot sauce to a square meal of good communications in that sense. And while we appreciate the weight of say, scoring an Op-Ed in the New York Times, we also equally value the appearance of your issue on the front cover of Rolling Stone, the digital pages of Blavity, or an Instagram post to millions of an influencer’s followers.
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Big Bowl of Ideas was founded by Wyatt Closs, its Principal and Creative Producer. It also includes a core team of 5 plus a very active constellation of over 20 creative professionals in disciplines ranging from graphic design to video production to digital products to events, art curation and spectacles.
Wyatt has worn many hats and brings them all to bear for his work at BBOI. He has over 20 years of creative advocacy and organizing for social justice and political progress.
He wore several hats at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in DC, NY, and LA—Government Affairs Director, Grassroots Legislative Director, Public Affairs Director and Civil and Human Rights Director, among other roles. As such, he drove work in politics, strategic planning, social justice, communications, coalition building, and cultural organizing.
We employ a team model that allows us to expand and contract as needed. Wyatt often recruits and collaborates with individuals for whom he’s cultivated excellent relationships and generated creative energy to meet the demands of a given situation on a project, campaign or initiative on behalf of organizations and businesses. That creates dexterity and more ideas. A good thing.
As part agency, part lab, we often craft ideas out of whole cloth, explore and develop them further and then seek a client or funder for them in addition to the traditional client-consultant relationship model pervasive in our industry.
Got passion, curiosity, and a spark for creativity?
We’re a Creative Public Affairs shop. Our clients range from advocacy organizations looking to utilize pop culture tools to artists looking to make a strong social statement to socially responsible business ventures. We fuse the best of traditional strategic communications with new school energy and vibrancy.
We’re always on the lookout for good talent and folks with creative instincts to be part of our team. Feel free to check back periodically for opportunities.
