Huge is a creative growth acceleration company, founded in

Dumbo, Brooklyn Dumbo (or DUMBO, short for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The area known as Dumbo used to be known as Gairville. It encompasses two sections: one located between the Manhat ...

, in 1999.

History

Huge was founded by David Skokna, Sasha Kirovski, Gene Liebel, and Aaron Shapiro. Skokna and Kirovski, friends and colleagues at Deutsch, first established the company out of Skokna's apartment in 1999. Huge's first client was IKEA who hired the firm to redesign its websites. Between 2005 and 2010, Huge also won and launched web design initiatives for

JetBlue JetBlue Airways Corporation (stylized as jetBlue) is a major American low cost airline, and the seventh largest airline in North America by passengers carried. The airline is headquartered in the Long Island City neighborhood of the New York C ...

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Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was establ ...

, Four Seasons,

Pepsi Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961. History Pepsi was f ...

, and Target. In 2008 The Interpublic Group acquired a stake in Huge for close to $40 million. In 2009, Huge was named the fastest-growing company across all marketing disciplines by Advertising Age. In 2010,

announced it was working with Huge on the Pepsi Refresh project, using social media to fund public good projects. Later that year, Aaron Shapiro was named CEO and IPG announced an investment of between $8 million and $10 million to accelerate global expansion for Huge with new offices in Brazil, China, Singapore, and Japan. At this time Skokna and Kirovski departed Huge. In 2011, Huge launched a UX School program offering about 12-week UX apprenticeships and opened offices in Rio de Janeiro and London. In 2011, Huge also began working with

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television, premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office busi ...

to design and launch

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, leading to the adoption of streaming TV initiatives by most cable TV brands. Huge would later work with Fox, FX Now, The Simpsons, and

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series ...

on direct-to-consumer TV initiatives. In 2013, Huge opened a production studio to support its expansion from product and web design into marketing as the company took on integrated marketing work for Samsung and was named social media AOR for Audi. In 2013, Huge also launched the first redesign of New York City's municipal website in a decade. The company announced in a March 2018 statement that Shapiro would depart the company after 13 years of overseeing the growth of the company. Michael Koziol replaced Shapiro as CEO. In May 2019 it was announced Publicis Groupe veteran Pete Stein would replace Michael Koziol as CEO. In June 2021, IPG named Mat Baxter the company's Global Chief Executive Officer. In July 2022, Huge laid off 3% of its global workforce in response to a revenue drop caused by clients cancelling or pausing activities, and signed a lease to create a 71,000 square foot Global Experience Center at Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

References

External links

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Net Magazine Profile: HUGE
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huge Companies based in New York City Advertising agencies of the United States Digital marketing companies of the United States