The Variable acquires Colorado Gen Z firm — Winston‑Salem agency adds youth-focused capability

The Variable has acquired Colorado creative agency Carson+Doyle, adding a specialist team built around understanding Gen Z, Gen Alpha and the internet culture shaping what younger consumers buy.

The deal is The Variable’s third acquisition since 2021 and brings clients including Spotify and Red Bull into the Winston-Salem agency’s portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed. Founded in 2017, Carson+Doyle has built its reputation by creating platform-native work for brands including Tinder, Snapchat, LifeStraw, Backcountry Access and restaurant chain Bonchon.

Its proposition is deliberately uncomplicated: “work that slaps.” Behind the language is a serious capability that larger agencies often struggle to manufacture. Carson+Doyle understands how younger audiences communicate, which cultural signals matter and why advertising created for social platforms cannot look or behave like a television commercial cut into vertical video.

The Variable is buying cultural relevance

Gen Z marketing has become an industry full of agencies telling brands to be authentic, move quickly and hire more creators.

The real problem is harder. Culture now moves across TikTok, private communities, creators, memes and rapidly changing platform behaviours. By the time a trend has been explained in a corporate presentation and approved by six executives, the audience has usually moved on. The Variable could have assembled a youth-marketing department and spent years learning that lesson for itself.

Instead, it bought a team already producing work inside the culture its clients want to reach. Carson+Doyle gives The Variable access to specialist creative talent, younger audiences and an established network of collaborators. In return, it gains the strategy, media, behavioural insight, data and production capabilities of a much larger integrated agency.

The founders of both businesses had been getting to know each other for almost a year before completing the transaction. Carson+Doyle founders Charlie Naus and Thomas Brazier will join The Variable alongside the agency’s wider creative network.

Another specialist added to the platform

The Variable was recapitalised by private equity firm Svoboda Capital Partners in 2021, giving the agency backing to expand its capabilities through acquisition. In 2023, it bought Data Crunch, an applied AI and analytics company whose founders joined The Variable to build data strategy, predictive modelling and emerging-technology services.

Carson+Doyle extends that strategy into culture and platform-native creativity. The Variable already works across brand strategy, creative, media, social, public relations, influencer marketing, behavioural insights and analytics. Its clients include Liquid Death, NAPA, Tesla, P&G, Merck and Electrolux.

What Carson+Doyle adds is not simply another creative department. It gives the agency a sharper route into audiences that established brands know they need but repeatedly fail to understand.

That creates an obvious cross-selling opportunity. Carson+Doyle’s clients can access The Variable’s wider media, strategy and data operation, while The Variable can introduce specialist Gen Z and Gen Alpha work across its existing client base.

The commercial bet is that cultural fluency will become more valuable as the distance between generations grows. Brands do not need another 60-page report explaining young people. They need people who can make work young people will actually watch. The Variable has decided it is faster to buy them than train everyone else to pretend.