Park AndJungle
Tyler
5 min
The same person who helped shape Kendrick Lamar's visual language, Calvin Klein films, Chanel work, arena tours, and the Super Bowl halftime show is now helping institutions think about themselves differently.
Most people saw the NBPA announce PLYRS UNTD this week and thought it was another athlete platform.
I kept thinking about who made it.
The launch film was curated, filmed, and produced by Project 3, the agency operating under Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free's pgLang umbrella. It wasn't a celebrity endorsement. It was a creative commission. A union with billions of dollars of collective influence hired one of the most culturally relevant creative teams in the world to define how its next chapter should feel.
That's probably the more interesting story.
Dave Free has spent the better part of a decade proving that cultural fluency travels.
Music videos became tour creative.
Tour creative became fashion campaigns.
Fashion campaigns became brand partnerships.
Brand partnerships became a full-service agency.
Today, Project 3 offers strategy, creative direction, design, production, experiences, and storytelling for companies that understand taste can no longer be outsourced to traditional advertising.
The PLYRS UNTD work feels like an example of that.
The assignment wasn't to announce a new business.
It was to communicate a shift.
NBA players are attempting to move beyond endorsement checks and participate more directly in the businesses their influence helps create. Project 3 translated that ambition into something people would actually want to watch.
That may be Dave Free's greatest skill.
He doesn't just make campaigns.
He creates cultural framing.
The same person who helped shape Kendrick Lamar's visual language, Calvin Klein films, Chanel work, arena tours, and the Super Bowl halftime show is now helping institutions think about themselves differently.
It's easy to look at pgLang as an entertainment company.
Increasingly, it looks more like a modern holding company for taste.
The model is compelling because it doesn't depend on media buying or audience arbitrage.
It depends on developing a point of view that enough people trust.
And once you have that, the clients get larger.
Artists become brands.
Brands become institutions.
Institutions become clients.
Eventually, you're no longer competing with agencies.
You're competing for the opportunity to define culture itself.
Park AndJungle
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