British photographer Rankin’s advertising agency files for bankruptcy amid tough ‘shift in the creative landscape’ – The Art Newspaper

Rankin Group, the advertising agency run by the British photographer, publisher and film director Rankin, has filed for bankruptcy, owing employees more than £300,000 and the UK tax authority (HMRC) more than £1m.

Rankin, whose full name is John Rankin Waddell, has photographed Kate Moss, Madonna, David Bowie and Queen Elizabeth II among others. Though mainly known for his fashion photography, his work has been exhibited in commercial art galleries and is held in the National Portrait Gallery. Rankin’s photography, directing and production business, Rankin & Co, is not part of the insolvency proceedings.

Rankin tells The Art Newspaper: “[Rankin Group] was forced into liquidation because of an unforeseen tax bill, which meant that some staff did not receive their entire redundancy payments. The HMRC bill came as a big shock to us when we received the demand. Up until that point, we were looking at a recovery plan or, in the worst-case scenario, a winding down. Even after the demand, I tried to work out a deal, but it was just too late.”

According to filings on Companies House, trade creditors are owed £258,000—though this figure includes prepayments of £73,000 for the year, which will not become due—while inter-company creditors are owed £980,000. “This indicates the level of support this company has had and is still owed to other Rankin businesses,” the photographer says. He adds that the £300,000 owed to employees “are primarily claims arising from the closure of the business—redundancy or notice, as opposed to arrears of wages—much of which will be recovered from the Redundancy Payments Service”.

Rankin set up his advertising agency, initially called Rankin Creative, five years ago, later changing the name to the Rankin Group. “It was 100% financed and owned by me, which is why I’m the sole director, although there was a share incentive scheme,” Rankin says. The company was run by eight key people, including a chief executive, finance director and managing director.

Rankin says the business did well in its first three years but had begun to struggle over the past two. “Whether it was due to reduced budgets around the economy or losing work to programmatic and AI-based solutions, it was a massively challenging period for us and many other services like us,” he says. “In addition, the technological revolution has essentially gutted a lot of the creative services agencies delivering great non-programmatic work. Sadly, that is what we were selling: a bespoke creative service around storytelling and brand building. When you combined that, with the lack of face-to-face work and meetings post-covid, it’s been a perfect storm. I couldn’t be more disappointed with both myself and the business for not being able to make the agency a success. I put everything I had into it, but it just wasn’t enough to make it work.”

Rankin launched the lifestyle magazine Dazed & Confused with his friend and business partner Jefferson Hack in 1992. In December 2000 he added the quarterly fashion magazine RANK to the Dazed stable, before launching Another Magazine the following year. Rankin says the magazine business is untouched by the insolvency proceedings. “The Hunger Publishing company was and is a separate limited company to the insolvent one and continues to trade. Dazed has absolutely nothing to do with the advertising agency at all, and to be honest, I have very little to do with Dazed these days. I am mainly just a shareholder,” he says.

While he continues to run his photography and production business, Rankin says he is “leaving the struggle of surviving in this climate to people that I really respect and who are obviously much better at it than I am”. He adds: “I wish them all the luck in the world, as I’ve never experienced something quite as tough as this shift in the creative landscape.”