Jake Wilmink ’19 built his advertising career on discomfort. Now he directs Dunkin' campaigns at Artists Equity, working with Kylie Jenner.
Jake Wilmink never expected his career to follow a straight line. In fact, he thinks that's exactly the point.
“I was comfortable, and I think, for me, being comfortable is just not good,” Wilmink said, reflecting on his recent career change. “I want uncomfortable and growth.”
Today, Wilmink is the brand director at Artists Equity — an independent, artist-led production studio founded by actors Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Gerry Cardinale — where he oversees the Dunkin' account, featuring Kylie Jenner. His role spans every stage of the creative process, from helping clients define their brand strategy to collaborating with creative teams and ensuring campaigns come to life in a way that resonates with audiences.
But long before leading national campaigns, Wilmink was a UO business major searching for a creative outlet.
“I've always had a bit of a business mindset, but I think, for me, I was lacking the creative outlet,” he said. “Advertising allowed me to scratch that creative itch.”
While classroom instruction laid the foundation, Wilmink said the experiences that mirrored professional work had the greatest impact. Allen Hall Advertising gave him his first taste of working with real clients and real expectations.
“As much as you can prepare in classes, it's just not the same,” Wilmink said. “Having real clients and real expectations is definitely the best way.”
Developing a campaign for a beloved basketball team
Wilmink worked on AHA's inaugural women's basketball brand campaign, which had launched just as stars like Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard were helping elevate the program to national prominence.
“Our women's team was an absolute machine, so it was, like, perfect timing,” Wilmink said.
The AHA campaign's central theme emphasized “wonder,” designed to encapsulate what it's like to hear and feel the excitement inside Matthew Knight Arena. One of the standout projects of the campaign was a collectible poster series designed to move fans who engaged with the team solely on social media to the fan experience inside the arena.
To bring the campaign to life, Wilmink and his team had to secure funding themselves. Working with a limited budget, they pitched the idea to potential partners, ultimately convincing the leaders of Portland-based Columbia Sportswear to back the project.
That ability to turn an idea into a fully realized campaign carried over into his coursework, where Wilmink continued exploring how advertising could challenge perceptions and connect with audiences.
In Advertising and Culture taught by Troy Elias, Wilmink's team developed a campaign for Lush promoting skincare for Black men, challenging stereotypes through a creative photo shoot and commercial.
“We just had such a good time,” he said. “It goes to show that solving business problems doesn't need to be stressful. It doesn't need to be something that is weighing on you — it should be fun.”
Outside the classroom, Wilmink found a collaborative community where students would jump into one another's projects.
“You'd get on the third floor, and you'd have 100 people who are just working on cool shit, and you'd kind of just raise your hand and jump in,” he said.
Translating work experience into career skills
After graduating, Wilmink's first job was an account management internship at Anomaly in New York City. Without previous internship experience, he leaned on creativity to make his resume stand out, reframing skills from his cashier job at PetSmart into transferable skills for advertising, including relationship-building and client service.
“I took real-life skills from the actual job description and applied them to a job that really had nothing to do with the actual job that I was trying to get,” he said.
The unexpected connection? One of the accounts Wilmink ended up working on was Petco, a competitor of the company where he had gained those original skills. The experience reinforced an important lesson early in his career.
“You just never know what you're gonna unfold,” Wilmink said.
That internship led to opportunities at Lucky Generals, 72andSunny, See's Candies, Vital Proteins, Tillamook, NFL and CeraVe.
“I loved it, but at the same time you're doing the same wheelhouse of work over and over and over,” Wilmink said. “It can get a little repetitive when you're in the ad industry.”
That desire for something different — and less comfortable — eventually led him to Artists Equity, where he is the account director for Dunkin'.
Artists Equity is designed to reform how creative talent, crew and studios share profits from films and television projects through three divisions: scripted television, unscripted television, and advertising. The advertising sector has three main clients: Dunkin', Aflac, and Ford. Wilmink is an account director for Dunkin', meaning all the work for the Dunkin' account funnels through him.
The recent campaign he worked on was the King Kylie's Boardroom ad to promote The King Kylie Collection, which plays on the King Kylie era of 2014 to 2016. The collection includes three pink-hued refresher drinks available only during summer 2026.
The commercial created by Artists Equity stars Kylie Jenner running a chaotic corporate boardroom meeting, where she drops buzzwords and pitches candy-pink aesthetic choices for the drink line.
From scripting the advertisement to overseeing production, post-production and client relations, Wilmink's job is to manage the entire process, while keeping the client updated and maintaining Dunkin's vision for the campaign.
“My job is to manage that process from front to back,” he said. “I'm there to have solutions and keep us going from point A to point B in as tight of a line as I possibly can.”
Wilmink credits this job opportunity to the connections he made along the way. The recruiter at Translation, another ad agency where he had interviewed before ultimately choosing 72andSunny, reached back out to him a few years later. By then, the recruiter had gone freelance and encouraged him to apply for an open position at Artists Equity.
“I think everything is connected in some capacity,” Wilmink said. “Be good to people, and say 'yes' to any opportunity, and you'll find yourself in the craziest positions.”
For students preparing to enter the industry, Wilmink encourages them to embrace uncertainty, advocate for themselves and focus on building genuine relationships.
“Don't try to be anybody else,” he said. “Learn from a bunch of different people and take the things that you think are useful, but the key and the point of you being there is to be yourself."
Lily Reese is a fourth-year journalism major at the SOJC, with a minor in food studies. She is passionate about storytelling, sustainability and lifelong learning. Lily loves to write, and you can find her work in Ethos magazine, Eugene Weekly and Ascend magazine, where she is director.
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