{"id":19859,"date":"2022-07-21T14:10:17","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T18:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/?p=19859"},"modified":"2022-07-29T12:00:51","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T16:00:51","slug":"creative-agency-investor-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceros.com\/inspire\/originals\/creative-agency-investor-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Creative Agency of the Future Is Also an Investor"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 4<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

In 2015, at the peak of the DTC startup boom, Inc<\/em>. ran a story about a growing trend<\/a> in the business world: more and more clients were offering creative agencies equity as partial or total payment for their work. It weighed the pros and cons on both sides of the relationship, citing successes like Red Antler\u2019s investment\/brand identity work for mattress brand Casper and Gin Lane\u2019s bet on Harry\u2019s. By now, both brands are household names for anyone who shops at Target. The agencies, too, have gone on to be successful in different ways. For each creative agency, it raised their profile to take a stake in\u2014and not just work for\u2014companies that hit it big. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it\u2019s hard to know just how much these agencies made from their investments, the paths they\u2019ve taken since indicate a certain amount of freedom. In 2019, Red Antler expanded its brand services empire with Good Moose<\/a>, a performance marketing agency. That same year, Gin Lane shuttered its branding agency altogether to become a consumer goods brand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her 2020 book Obsessed: Building a Brand People Love From Day One<\/em>, Red Antler co-founder and chief brand officer Emily Heyward emphasizes the importance of taking the time and money to really figure out the look, feel, and personality of a brand before<\/em> launch. That principle is now so commonly accepted that it\u2019s easy to forget that there was a time not so long ago when branding was thought of as secondary to product. It\u2019s a shift in thinking that\u2019s given creative agencies that specialize in early-stage companies a lot more power than they once had, both in terms of client relationships and overall influence across industries.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n