Cat Gunderson and Elisa Werbler know how to kill things people love. Their Hinge mascot, Hingie, died over and over and over again in increasingly creative ways, and people couldn’t get enough of it. The “Designed to be Deleted” campaign drove a 45% spike in app downloads while turning a dating app into cultural currency.
Now they’re bringing that instinct to Mythology, the downtown NYC shop that’s been building some of the most interesting brands around.
What They Did
The creative duo first partnered at Red Antler, where Hingie became the mascot everyone wanted to see murdered. The cute white cube with googly eyes got thrown on campfires, run over, chucked in washing machines, pecked apart by pigeons, and squashed by air conditioning units. Morbid? Sure. Effective? Absolutely.
At The Martin Agency, they got Oreo back to the Super Bowl after a decade away. Their “Twist On It” campaign earned Silver and Bronze Lions at Cannes by turning cookie-twisting into the deciding factor for everything from the Trojan Horse to Kris Jenner’s career choices.
Why Mythology Makes Sense
Mythology calls itself “an independent creative company in the business of making legacies” for brands ready to challenge categories. That fits. They’ve helped A24 become the coolest film studio, turned Harry’s into a razor revolution, and made Meta’s VR fitness fun.
The work isn’t about following formulas. It’s about discovering the human truth that makes brands stand out. Cat and Elisa’s background proves this—both took detours through academia and furniture design before landing in advertising. Those non-linear paths show up in campaigns that refuse to follow category playbooks.
The Bigger Picture
This hire signals a shift across indie agencies: they’re prioritizing creative leaders who can build challenger brands from scratch and revitalize established ones. Specialists who only know one type of client are no longer enough.
“We don’t only do advertising, and we don’t only do branding,” said Audrey Attal and Kim Haxton, Partners and ECDs at Mythology. “We do it all, but with the understanding that a brand is not a campaign. It’s not a logo. It is a story, and not even one that we tell, but one we hope to inspire others to.”
Cat and Elisa understand that. They’ve proven they can make people care about app mascots dying and cookie-twisting decisions. Now they get to apply that storytelling instinct to whatever comes next.
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