28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Rise and Shine expands in Minneapolis, hires production lead
Rise and Shine is expanding its footprint in Minneapolis, hires new executive to grow production studio.
Story Highlights Rise and Shine leases new space to expand production capabilities.
Freddie Richards hired to lead Golden Hour Productions arm.
New studio includes editing suites and voice-over booth.
Rise and Shine and Partners has leased new space in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis as the ad agency looks to expand its in-house production capabilities.
The firm has also hired Freddie Richards to lead the agency's production arm, Golden Hour Productions.
The move comes shortly after the agency's acquisition of Minneapolis-based advertising company, Adventure Creative Group in January. Rise and Shine's president and CEO, Kevin DiLorenzo, said the new space was necessary to accommodate growth at the firm.
"This is addressing the needs of our clients and growth and will help us keep up with client needs and wants for producing more and more content to feed what I'd call hungry modern ecosystems," he said.
The 1,400-square-foot space is located at 4280 Sheridan Ave. S., just down the block from the agency's 10,000-square-foot headquarters at 4353 Upton Ave. S. The studio will have two editing suites and a voice-over booth; about 12 of the firm's 85 total employees will be based there.
Before starting at Rise and Shine on Monday, Richards was head of production at Omnicom Content Studios in Minneapolis. He also spent nearly 12 years at Minneapolis-based Carmichael Lynch, where he was its senior executive content producer.
Richards said the fact Rise and Shine is an independent firm was a big point of attraction to take the job.
"Being independent allows you to be more nimble," he said. "When agency and marketing trends are changing all the time, you have the speed to react and support your client needs more effectively."
Having a more robust in-house production studio will also allow the agency to better meet client needs. "Having in-house production you can react to any type of client. ... it's going to provide more efficiency and effectiveness for deliverables and time frames."
Richards is also helping oversee the agency's proprietary artificial intelligence capability, Black Rabbit. "The one thing about AI is making sure it's the right use the right way," he said. "This tool allows people to put out a high quality, high quantity product, in what used to take a couple of days or a week, in minutes."
