Founded on the idea that icons are made, not born, full service agency, CRISP is celebrating its first birthday in a typical “CRISP” fashion- ICONICALLY.
Self proclaimed as the agency that “formed as a mutiny against mediocrity”, CRISP commemorated their first anniversary appropriately: by taking over a bar with swank and swagger.
“It’s actually the anti-origin story of most agencies. We were born from performance marketing and built a best-in-class branding and creative offering on top. It makes everything smarter. Everything we produce is based on art and science to fuel customer and revenue growth for our clients,” said Jeff Kilman, CEO of CRISP, in a statement.
Since its launch, the agency has doubled in size and custom-built a penthouse office space, which at capacity will hold 50+ people as CRISP expands their existing capabilities across a range of services including strategy, experience design, search, programmatic advertising, analytics and the creative ideas that drive every channel.
DIVERGE spoke to Brent Barbour, Creative Director at CRISP to find out more:
How is CRISP celebrating its 1st anniversary?
As an advertising agency we embrace being in service to our clients. However, for our one year anniversary we challenged ourselves to make CRISP as iconic as we make our clients the other 364 days of the year. To do that we took over The Haymaker in downtown Raleigh, NC and commissioned Richard Barlow Photography to capture the swank and swagger of the people that make CRISP crisp.
Where did the idea for CRISP come from?
CRISP is actually the anti-origin story of most agencies. We were born from performance marketing and built a best-in-class branding and creative offering on top. Our past and present combine on a daily basis to produce art and science to fuel customer and revenue growth for our clients.
What are you proudest of in your first year and what do you hope to accomplish in the next year?
At CRISP, we’re dedicated to the creation of icons. Iconic brands, campaigns, results and experiences for both our clients and employees. And in that respect it has been an extremely successful first 12-months. CRISP has nearly doubled its employee and client count, designed and built a bespoke penthouse office that echoes a NYC speakeasy and expanded our existing capabilities across a range of services including strategy, experience design, search, programmatic advertising, analytics and the creative thinking that drives every channel. But for anyone that thinks this is the destination, it’s only the beginning.
In 2016 we built an award winning, full service, advertising agency, but we’d be the first to say that we haven’t done enough to shine a spotlight on our success. We’ll remain humble, but when the opportunity presents itself to showcase the love we have for our clients, our work and our results we’ll seize it.
What’s your advice for those that want to start their own agency?
Similar to starting a business in any industry, start by deciding what your core focus, or end goal is.
For example, do you want to want a select few clients or do you want a massive roster. Do you want to specialize in a particular channel or do you want to be a full service offering? Do you want to win awards or make a bunch of money (those aren’t mutually exclusive, but it can feel that way).
With that you can start to figure out your niche, what makes your company unique and the customers you need to talk to. That’s the easy part, because once you figure all that out take the time to document the values upon which you want to build your company. Seriously, you can’t spend too much time here.
Get them right and one day you’ll look around the company and realize you have a diverse group of people with unique and varied backgrounds and talents who all seem to magically want the same thing in their work and life. It’s not magic.
Your team has grown quite a bit…what is the culture like at CRISP?
We’re a high growth company, but above all else CRISP is a value driven organization.
Constructive candor
Resourcefulness,
Intellectual curiosity
Spirit of service
Passionate ownership
(shockingly, they spell CRISP).
Yes, we seek best-in-class experts in every role, but it’s far more important that you’re one of us at your core.
Why did you choose the Vanity Fair cover and how was the photo shoot experience?
As a Creative Director, I wanted something reminiscent of those vintage storefront images where the founders and original employees stand proudly in front of what they built. Founded on the idea that icons are made, not born, we drew inspiration from Norma Jean Roy’s work for Vanity Fair and sought to do a “founders photo” that transformed the team that built CRISP into the icons we seek to create each and every day.
