Jessica Thomas Cooke, Class of 2005

Since opening WM Influencer Agency, Jessica Thomas Cooke ’05 has become a major player in partnership brand marketing, having capitalized on an exploding talent pool of bloggers and other online personalities. These influencers and their massive—and massively engaged—social media followings (Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr) have attracted Fortune 500 companies worldwide, who want to hire them to post, vlog, pin, tweet, instagram and promote everything from clothes and cosmetics to condominiums and insurance. Jessica represents the online celebrities, working with brands to develop targeted campaigns that produce a bigger ROI, including increased brand awareness, sales, web traffic and media mentions, than traditional marketing.

How did Jessica identify this burgeoning niche? Rewind to 2005, when she graduated from WPGA and headed to Australia for a gap year, which turned into eight years (during which she briefly returned to Vancouver to complete a media communications and broadcast journalism degree at BCIT). While in Sydney, she did blogger outreach for a public relations firm, coordinating the first, and hugely profitable, blogger-only event. She then did film and television casting for another firm, casting for American shows.

When Jessica and her husband, Mike, moved to Vancouver in 2013, she followed the fruitful forecasting of a former boss, who had a blogger-only talent agency in Australia. In July 2014, Jessica founded her own agency, the first of its kind in Canada. Jessica and her team have since cast numerous corporate campaigns, often working with global advertising agencies such as DDB and Cundari, and manage not only casting and recruitment but also contracts, logistics and analytics.

As for her time at WPGA, Jessica feels it well prepared her professionally, and treasures the connections she shared with peers and teachers, all influencers in her life. Jessica says she would not be the writer she is had it not been for Ms. Meneilly, and credits Ms. Meneilly’s cover letter tutorials for helping her score an interview for every job she has applied for. Jessica also fondly remembers being in school plays with Ms. McAllister and choir with Mr. Elmer.

Jessica plans to expand her agency to Toronto, and hopes her success will inspire other agencies to follow suit (“competition will only help validate our market value”). Given Jessica’s brand-building acumen, and recent features in the Vancouver Sun and other media, we are excited to watch her lead the growth of this trendsetting and lucrative industry.