United Talent Agency Adds Brand Strategy Unit A TALENT agency whose clients bear names that are like brands in Hollywood - among them, Johnny Depp, Channing Tatum, Judd Apatow and Jennifer Lopez - is getting more deeply into the brand-building business. United Talent Agency, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., is opening a division named the Brand Studio at U.T.A., which will specialize in brand strategy services that include brand architecture, determining how the brands in a company ought to relate to one another; quantitative and qualitative research; development of the visual elements of a brand like color, known as visual identity; and brand positioning, establishing with consumers an image or market for a brand. The new division will be led by Laurence Vincent, who came to United Talent Agency last year from Siegel & Gale, where he had been group director for strategy in the Los Angeles office. Mr. Vincent, whose title will be head of the Brand Studio, is being joined there by Michellene DeBonis, who had been senior vice president for business development at Siegel & Gale. She becomes head of business development at the Brand Studio. Siegel & Gale is a unit of the Omnicom Group that is a brand and corporate identity consulting firm - in other words, offering services like the Brand Studio's. When asked which branding agencies he would identify as among competitors for the Brand Studio, Mr. Vincent, diplomatically, did not mention Siegel & Gale, listing instead firms like Prophet and Wolff Olins, which, like Siegel & Gale, is owned by Omnicom. "I'm a big believer in brand storytelling," said Mr. Vincent, 43, the author of two books, "Legendary Brands," published in 2001, and a new one, "Brand Real: How Smart Companies Live Their Brand Promises and Inspire Fierce Customer Loyalty." Once, brands that wanted to woo consumers with stories would "immediately go to advertising," he added, but "now, the story is in the experience" that consumers have with brands. The opening of the Brand Studio is another sign of how much the distinctions among agencies in marketing services continue to blur. Digital agencies, design businesses and production companies "are getting assignments that are more upstream," said Bill Oberlander, director at the Oberlander Creative Group in New York, at the same time that so-called traditional agencies are working in realms like social media. "You can reach out and find the people to do the best job," Mr. Oberlander said, wherever they may work. Even before starting the Brand Studio, United Talent Agency had been handling tasks once deemed outside the province of a Hollywood talent agency through units like its licensing and endorsements division. For instance, the agency helped a client, the singer Gwen Stefani, create the Harajuku Lovers and L.A.M.B. apparel brands. United Talent Agency also works on so-called branded entertainment - integrating brands and products into television shows and movies - through a joint venture, the United Entertainment Group, which lists among its clients the Frito-Lay and Quaker Oats divisions of PepsiCo, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble. "The skill set of what agencies do, and the opportunities coming to agencies, are changing very rapidly," said Jeremy Zimmer, chief executive of United Talent Agency. "For a number of years now, we've been having different conversations with brands" to determine "how to solve problems," he said. The Brand Studio completes the picture for us. Mr. Vincent echoed him. "If you look at talent agencies today, they're not just dealing with actors, directors, studios, but also venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, engineers," Mr. Vincent said. "We can help clients launch brands; re-establish the relevance of their brands with core audiences, which can include employees in addition to customers; and help their brands with innovating," he said. The Brand Studio begins with five employees in addition to Mr. Vincent and Ms. DeBonis. It has three initial clients, Mr. Vincent said, one of which is "a publisher rethinking its master brand." He declined to identify the clients, saying, "most people don't prefer to have it broadcast that they're rethinking their brand." Mr. Vincent is more forthcoming about the clients for which he worked previously, when he was at Siegel & Gale and, before that, agencies like Octagon, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Those clients included CBS, Coca-Cola, MasterCard, Microsoft, the National Football League and Southwest Airlines. United Talent Agency, in terms of its own brand, likes to position itself as a boutique alternative to talent agencies like Creative Artists Agency and William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. Its other Hollywood name-brand clients include stars like Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Ruffalo and Charlize Theron; directors like Wes Anderson and the brothers Ethan and Joel Coen; and creators of television series like David Chase of "The Sopranos." Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply contributed reporting.