Crea7ive Branding and Advertising Agency

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder/CEO of a Saas company in the automotive retail space. We power digital retail for car dealerships.

For what projects/services did your company hire Crea7ive Branding and Advertising Agency, and what were your goals?

Our startup pivoted and we needed a new homepage and branding to reflect the new pivot. We needed to educate our target market of our new services with the ultimate goal of them booking a Demo with our sales team.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I've worked with Crea7ive in the past and love their work. I go back to them time and time again for all my marketing needs. They are very creative and collaborative, which is important to me since I'm very hands on. Their work always looks sophisticated and contemporary.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Design of new homepage. Presented the design and revisions using Figma, built the site on WordPress. They did custom graphics for the site as well

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

3- Pia (CEO), Agus (Designer), Marina (engineer)

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We have gotten incredible feedback from friends and family. We have not started our marketing push yet so there are no key metrics to share at this time.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Super fast (revisions ready next day usually). They are very relaxed and humble...but don't let that fool you because their work is EXCEPTIONAL in my opinion. They are also great at collaborating and listening to the clients requests and making it work. They also care even after the project is complete. True story: I sent them an email at 6p on a Friday with *Urgent* in the subject line and by 6:05pm they had emailed me back and took care of my request immediately. It really is a joy to work with a team that you know has your back.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We were impressed with how relaxed and humble they were while delivering exceptional results. The finished product looks like it came out of a Corporate Branding Agency on Madison Avenue.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not that I can think of. I'm really happy with them and am already working with them on another project for our company.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I oversee branding and communications for a renewable energy company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

We already had a presence in Latin America, but when we started this platform in 2017 we had to create everything about our brand from scratch. We had a logo but needed to establish brand guidelines so we could make our mark in the region.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We began working with Crea7tive to help us organize our branding projects and to create a detailed brand book. We then realized what a valuable resource they were, especially considering they knew our brand already, and decided to continue working with them.

They also worked with us to create position statements, select images for use on our site and social media and created our in-office branding. They currently help us create and revise website content.

What is the team composition?

My main points of contact are the company's cofounders, but I've also been in touch with some of the designers and content writers.

How did you come to work with Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

I researched companies online and reached out to local firms whose work I liked. Crea7ive sent samples of their previous work and I liked the brands they'd created for other groups. In addition, they sent us brand books they'd made previously, which were at a higher caliber than brand books I'd received from other design agencies—they were clean, detailed, and gave me a sense of the team’s dedication to their clients.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started around June 2017 and finished the brand book around September of the same year, but continue to work with them on our site content.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Since we don't do any marketing or advertising, and instead rely entirely on branding and communications, it's difficult to quantify the feedback we've gotten as a result of their work. Our company has gained awareness not only as a result of our presence at industry events but also as a result of the branding work Crea7ive has done for us.

How did Crea7ive Interactive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

They're good project managers—very detailed and patient. The brand book took longer to finish than we’d anticipated as time went on and we came to better understand our needs. However, throughout that process, I was in frequent contact with Crea7ive’s cofounders, and they always responded quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really care about your brand and are willing to go the extra mile to ensure they give you quality materials. On several occasions, they approached us with ideas or designs they'd created without our prompting. That kind of initiative demonstrates their understanding of our position and the company's perspective, and their ability to accommodate those needs.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief product officer of Sensentia, an artificial intelligence company that sells products, mainly to health insurance companies, that allow them to simplify people’s interaction with healthcare. We wanted to develop a benefit inquiry system that lets users ask for all their benefits related to a medical service in their own words—for example, “How much should I pay for an MRI,” or, “Am I authorized for an X-ray.”

What challenge were you trying to address with Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

We’re an early-stage startup and don’t have a lot of expertise in marketing and branding. We used them to define our brand, tone, and colors—the visual appearance of our communications. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were very interactive and upfront with us throughout the process. They wanted to understand not only the product and customer but also the culture and atmosphere we wanted to set for ourselves as a company. They developed those branding materials initially, and then they wanted to understand how we wanted to position ourselves with the key attributes we wanted to communicate to our customers. They laid out a range of assets for us to develop to get that message across—all the way from the messaging to the visual appearance to the emphasis on the types of images included in our written and interactive communications.

They revised our logo and typeset (the fonts we use in our communications). They drafted the types of messages that we wanted to include, as well as the catchphrases and terms we wanted to add into the written materials. They helped us define the look and feel of our brochures.

They also developed a brand book for us, which was really a complete revamp of the visual aesthetic of all our digital and printed assets. The branding book handles all of the visual elements that we want for our company. We were able to take that branding book and, for example, make a PowerPoint template, a document template, and even an Excel template based on the materials and branding guidelines that they developed for us.

Now, we’re looking to utilize them for implementing the visual design of our digital materials. We’ll be using them to roll out the more complex digital aspects such as a website. Also, we’ll probably use them to expand our written assets as well such as our brochures, executive summary, and business cards.

We primarily worked with co-founders Paula and Pia, who were the principals. Pia was doing a lot of the business development work with us, and Paula was handling the creative tasks. I liked having a single point of contact for each of those aspects; everything that we wanted from the management perspective was very good. I knew who to contact if we had any concerns or questions.

How did you come to work with Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

I assessed them based on a couple of aspects. We were very impressed with Pia and Paula regarding their professionalism and willingness to work with our vision. Also, they could deliver an impressive level of service at one of the lowest quotes we received. We didn’t necessarily want to go with the cheapest, even though we’re a startup.

In the end, I had confidence in their ability to execute the project for the amount of money we had to spend. I’ve worked with a range of marketing and branding companies over the years. Within this company, we spoke to 3 or 4 different marketing companies before we chose Crea7ive. We saw a lot of value in their proposal, and they showed that in the finished product.

How much have you invested with Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

The project cost around $20,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Crea7ive roughly 2 years ago. The engagement was about 3–4 months, and it went through a number of iterations and a lot of contact time. The next stage of the project will probably take another 2–3 months. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

The results are hard to measure directly. If you look at our branding now, it’s much more professional, particularly for a startup. We were at the point where we had produced our first project, so we were going into our first deployment when we did the rebranding. We needed to improve everything to be perceived as a viable, working company instead of a startup.

Since then, we’ve moved their marketing and presentation material to the branding that they did, and we’ve seen a lot of good feedback based on that branding. We’ve also gone from a pipeline of having one single client project to having 8 projects at the moment. I couldn’t say whether this is all due to the new branding, but the new image was definitely what we needed at that time. Crea7ive helped us present ourselves as a professional, capable company.

How did Crea7ive Interactive Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?

From contracting to delivery, it was a well-managed project. If the project management goes wrong, you notice, but if it goes right, you don’t notice at all. We had no problems throughout the whole process.

Often with marketing groups, it’s haphazard and just based on conversations, but they were very organized in the materials that they presented to us. Often, they let us express our thoughts through organized questionnaires, so we had a lot more time to think about what we wanted as opposed to interviews. Based on that original material, we went through a number of identities to flesh out the ideas that we originally had.

What did you find most impressive about Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

Even though they’re young, they offer a complete, fresh package, from the way they interact and listen to the professional rollout of the project and the delivery. They were very interested in what we wanted and meeting those goals rather than selling us a product. I’m really thrilled with our partnership. 

Are there any areas Crea7ive Interactive Advertising could improve?

I’d have to say no. They’re still relatively young. The more experience that they have, the more they’ll just keep growing as a company and as people. That experience could definitely help them. But, from what they promised, they delivered. They’re definitely on the right track, so I wouldn’t change really anything about them at the moment. 

Could you give a brief description of your company and what you do there?

My name is Ryan Amsel. I work for Jalan Jalan Collection. I am the marketing coordinator. I hired Crea7ive to assist with rebranding and designing our new site.

What was the business challenge you were trying to address when you hired Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

We have a very profound visual aesthetic for our furniture. Our previous site did not in any way represent what the experience of our brand was. I had them come to the showroom and get a sense of what is the tone, the aesthetic, the experience of our showroom, and then worked with them on how to create that same aesthetic on the website so that they would have the same feeling of walking into our showroom as going on to our site. That was where the design conversation began; they created a pretty good representation of our company. We created the five different photo images that are in our banner, our rolling banner. It’s giving the people the feel of what our brand experience is like and the ability to click on the banner to take you to individual products. They made it pretty streamlined and easy for us to capture that feeling, and then worked with the design to make it accessible for people to buy individual products to create that aesthetic. 

What did the scope of the website redesign involve on their end?

We already had a site that integrated Magento. We kept our platform and they changed the skin and did a lot of other coding to assist the new layout. They continue to work on the website whenever we have issues.

Aside from the Web design, were they involved with any other aspects of your rebrand?

Yes. We had them work on two other projects for us. One was a marketing brochure. It was a 12-page portfolio brochure. I worked with them on creating the layout and the representation of our different portfolio of different homes and condos that we furnished. They worked on that and did a beautiful brochure. They also designed our postcard-sized flyer. They did a nice job on that as well.

Why did you hire Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

I actually knew them from a previous project for a previous company. I had searched probably more than 100 top designers throughout Florida and the country. I selected them after an extensive market research of who was available. They did a great job with that previous project, and they’re great to work with, so I hired them on for the new company. 

Can you give a sense of the size of the project either with a cost range or a personnel work-hour figure?

I would say it’s a mid-range project. Because we had a relationship and because they did a great job on my last site, we came to a good agreement for a mid-range cost for this project. 

In terms of the results of the work that they did, are there any metrics, statistics, or feedback that you can share to indicate the effectiveness of the work that they delivered?

I wish I had some hard metrics. We have had a ridiculous amount of new hits to our site.

I would say that categorically and unanimously, every single person that has seen our new site is completely impressed. Everyone says, “Wow. What a difference.” They really captured in the website what we sought out to do, which was create the same feeling of coming into the showroom. They definitely achieved that. 

How would you describe their performance?

They’re very personable. We had a lot of email exchanges and phone exchanges. Because we didn’t have them start from scratch, and we had them take the existing coding structure from our site and adjust that, it was a little slower turnaround because there were a little bit more coding issues. They’ve made sure to make every touch point to be up to what we desired.

Please give a brief description of your company and your role.

My company’s name is Imuneek.com. I’m one of the co-founders. Imuneek is a website that connects people to other people, businesses, organizations, support groups, doctors, and events specific to your medical condition or disability, both physical and mental. 

When you first approached Crea7ive, what was the business challenge that you were trying to address?

I lost my vision due to an accident travelling overseas for work. When I lost my vision, it took two years for me to find all the available resources for the blind. I met other people with various medical conditions and disabilities, and they went through a similar issue – just randomly searching the Internet through thousands of Web pages. They all wished that there was one concise website where they could go and have all the resources brought to them. When I approached Crea7ive, that’s what I wanted to do. But, I had a limitation, which was that I couldn’t travel. They were the only company that made the accommodation for me to come to my house to talk to me about the website I wanted to build.

What was the scope of their work? Did they create the entire website?

Yes. They did the visual layout. They did the logo design. They did the business logic. They did the user interface. They did the customer experience. My business partner and I had the idea, but they truly saw the vision and made it come to reality.

How long did that project take?

Under a year. It was three years ago, in 2011.

Why did you select Crea7ive to work with in the beginning?

The first thing I did was research all the major website design firms in the U.S. I was looking to see which one had the best look, which one had the best deal, which website my wife, my business partner and I liked the most just visually. From what everybody else was telling me, Crea7ive had the best design. They had the best layout. We spoke on the phone and they were just so friendly and so informative. I left a note about my background, and they informed me about the changes that have happened since I lost my vision. They explained to me the different types of languages that they can use, the perks and the benefits to each one, why they should choose one over the other, what was the best platform design. On top of that, they were one of the only firms that would also help me with the logo design with my marketing. They could run a Facebook campaign, a Twitter campaign for me. They helped me shoot a commercial for a kickstarter video that we’re doing. They were a one-stop shop for everything that I needed digitally. It was amazing for us. That’s why I chose them; the plethora of business opportunities that we had to work with them.

Can you give a sense of the size of the project, either in a cost range or in a work-hour figure?

They gave us a tremendous discount [due to a personal connection with the cause]. I know that the scope of the work anywhere else would have cost between $65,000 and $85,000.

In terms of the results of the project, are there any metrics, statistics, or feedback that you can share that indicates the effectiveness of the work?

Since we launched, we have found out that 87% of our users use it every day. The remaining ones check back at least once a week in order to see what’s new. I’ve learned that we were one of only two resources in the country for a blind parent. We’re also, in South Florida, the only resource for juvenile type 2 diabetes. The businesses that have partnered with us use the site as references. So far, there’s been the Special Olympics of Miami-Dade County, the American Diabetes Association Dade and Broward Chapter, The Lighthouse for the Blind Broward. They’ve all said that this is just a tremendous resource.

One of the other criteria when I was designing the site is that it needed to be 508-compliant for people with different types of visual disabilities. The website is completely screen reader-friendly. It’s the most compatible social networking website for people that are blind. She made sure to keep it high in color contrast in case the user was colorblind. She made things very simple to operate and navigate in case the user is paraplegic and can’t operate a mouse and has to use the mouthpiece mouse. She made sure that there was nothing flashing, no banners, in case the user was prone to seizures or is epileptic. She took all that into consideration when designing, and the users have replied back with thanks for that. After the initial three step sign up, users never have to input any data again. All the resources are presented to them all at once, and they can just sort it however they deem necessary. Everybody loves the user experience mostly. They love how easy it is to operate. I just keep on getting positive feedback after positive feedback.

How would you describe Crea7ive’s performance?

They made me feel like I was a friend. It was just a tremendous experience. They connected with the project. They took time to understand it. They brought different aspects to it that I did not think about or even know to think about. It’s been amazing. They let me know that for this amount of money, we can accomplish this. They broke it down into a tier system for me. They said, “If you’re able to raise any extra money, we can add these features in the future.” They designed the website so that the database is going to be the foundation and they can just add modules and grow without having to reconfigure the whole site.

Looking back, is there any area that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?

So far, no. We’re still relatively new, but I would do it 1000 times over if I could.

Could you provide a brief description of your company and your role there?

It’s a shared workspace based here in the central business district of Miami. I’m the co-founder.

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address when you approached Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

We were starting our business and we were looking to build our website with some backend functionality as well. 

Could you describe the scope of the project?

They’re responsible for the full range of responsibility from A to Z.

Did they also do design elements like logo design?

They did not do the logo design, but they designed the site and a lot of our collateral materials as well. They drove the design as well.

How long did that project take?

It was about a three-month project. That was in 2012.

How did you select Crea7ive Interactive Advertising as your solution partner?

We did a pretty exhaustive search of companies. We liked their creativity. They had a lot of creative ideas and they were also extremely easy to work with. They were able to balance providing ideas and concepts with taking feedback to make sure that it was consistent with the direction that we were seeking. They worked really hard.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms or a work-hour figure?

It was a three- or four-month long project. They had several people working on the account. They were responsible for creating our entire website, developing backend application and developing a suite of marketing collateral materials for us. It was a big project.

In terms of results, could you share any metrics or feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work?

On a qualitative scale, we’re extremely pleased with their work. In terms of functionality, everything works really well. More than anything, we wanted to make sure that it communicated our message effectively to our targeted audience. They did really well.

When working with Crea7ive Interactive Advertising, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about them that distinguishes them from other companies?

Great conceptual design, and being able to implement that in a realistic way that gets done on time. There was very little difference between what we asked them to do and what the final product was.

Is there any area that they could improve on or that you would do differently?

Not really. They did a great job.

Could you provide a brief description of your company and your role there?

I’m a managing partner for a consumer finance company.

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address when you approached Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

We are building a website from scratch, and we did some paper brochures.

Could you describe the scope of their work?

The Web development is done by a partner company of theirs, but they did the design for the whole thing.

How long have you been working with them?

Since February [of 2014].

Do you have an approximate date of completion for the site?

July 16, [2014].

How did you select Crea7ive Interactive Advertising as your solution partner?

We interviewed a couple of different companies. They seemed to be knowledgeable and they seemed easy to work with when we had the initial meeting.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms or work-hour figure?

It’s about $200,000.

In terms of results, could you share any metrics or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work?

Not really, because we haven’t gone live with it yet. But, as far as I can see so far, they’ve done a nice job.

How would you describe their performance?

Good. It’s a pretty good relationship. They’re available when I call. We’ve had some delays, but it wasn’t their fault.

Is there any area that they could improve on or that you would do differently?

No.

Could you provide a brief description of your organization?

We’re a data entry outsourcing company. We do some custom programming for our customers. We’re in the healthcare industry, specifically long-term care and pharmacy. We also do Web design for our customers. We utilize Crea7ive as our Web designers. We’re a retailer of their service basically.

What is your role at the company?

I’m the CIO.

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address when you approached Crea7ive Interactive Advertising?

When we first started our company, we did the website on our own. We wanted to approach a professional group about doing a redesign of our website. They did a really good job with it, so we partnered with them to do websites for our customers with us being the liaison, essentially.

Could you describe the scope of their work?

They design and develop everything. They also do all of our marketing materials and our brochures. We just had them design a booth for a convention and business cards. They’re doing a marketing video for us, as well.

How did you select them as your solution partner?

We looked at a few different people when we were looking to redo our website. They were local. It was convenient to be able to meet with them face to face if we had to go over things. We just clicked when we were on the call together. We had the same vision and same ideas.

Does Crea7ive Interactive Advertising maintain your company’s website? Can you edit the website content yourself?

A little of both. If I just need to edit a text or some really simple content on a page, I just do it myself. But, if we need a new page or I’d like to change some coloring, we go back to them and have them do it for us.

In terms of results, could you share any metrics or feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

We get a lot of compliments on anything they’ve done for us from the website to our brochures. We actually have people ask us who we had do it because they wanted to contact them. We’ve gotten positive feedback on anything they’ve done for us.

How would you describe their performance?

Very good. They’re very responsive. They always take care of anything we need. I always enjoy working with them.

When working with them, is there anything you’d consider unique or special that distinguishes them from other vendors you’ve used?

Since they’re local, we’ve had some rush stuff we’ve needed to get done. They’ve gone out of their way to make sure it got done. They met us on the way to the airport to give us business cards that got printed that day. You can only do that if you’re local. If you use somebody who’s far away from your office, there’s no way you can arrange something like that. They’ve always helped us out for things like that.

In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?

It’s like any company. Sometimes, the response time isn’t exactly what you want, but every company has that problem sometimes. But, it’s not something for them to work on or a constant problem or anything like that.