Big agency talent without the big agency.
www.schoolofthought.com
Strong brands know how to lead. It takes large doses of critical thinking and creativity. We deliver both, in spades.
We started as a creative boutique in 2009. Now that’s timing. Soon, we were killing ourselves with our first big client, while the media agency was recycling last year's plan.
So we asked the client to let us handle the media, too, and they did. We kept growing, and adding services. Today, we can do just about anything: Media planning and buying. Video production. Content and sites. Branding. Stunts and activations. What does this all mean, for you? Effective, efficient work. And, dare we say, more than a little accountability.
Focus
Recommended Providers
Portfolio
Milliman
Milliman was the billion-dollar consulting company you had never heard of.
Their exceptional consultants have been transforming business with math and statistics for decades.
Nine years ago, we began telling their story with short documentaries and dramatic print and display ads. Our distinctive strategy, media, and creative has helped capture the attention of B2B decision makers across the globe.
Find out more https://www.schoolofthought.com/millimancampaign.
Red Bull
We raised the Red Bulletin to its rightful place in the Red Bull universe.
On par with GQ and Wallpaper, the Red Bulletin magazine was struggling. Sure, they had amazing content and a powerhouse parent brand, but awareness of this digital publication was anemic.
We drove more than 13,000 downloads in the first two months
Our first step was to streamline the registration process to create simpler, more engaging landing pages.. Once the site was improved, we shifted to awareness. Our unique Flipboard ads married the brand’s personality with the magazine’s one-of-a-kind content. Readers could download the app to dig in further.
Find more of our work at https://www.schoolofthought.com/redbullcampaign.
Check out our YouTube page www.youtube.com/schoolothought.
Blend
In many ways, the home loan process is broken. Getting a loan is nothing short of complex and time-consuming.
Blend’s mission is to build an online system that makes the lending application process seamless and intuitive. Blend also helps companies to grow, streamline workflows, and close loans faster.
After digging a little deeper into the company, we discovered the CEO’s personal history was perfectly in line with Blend’s company mission. We followed him back to Ohio to visit his childhood home and hear more about the story of how his family moved to America to settle in their first home.
Check out our YouTube page www.youtube.com/schoolothought.
Cisco
Our guerilla effort generated over 100k engagements, 3 million impressions, and thousands of smiles (and installs) in record time.
Mobile World Congress and CeBit are two of the world’s largest tradeshows. The Cisco WebEx team wanted us to help them to steal the show—without a booth, across the globe, in four weeks.
Our intrepid personal assistants hit the floors, equipped with everything to help attendees survive the shows: aspirin, blister pads, snacks, phone chargers, restaurant reccos—you name it.
Our campaign gave attendees a hand while demonstrating WebEx’s brand promise: giving small business a leg up. In return, we asked for a mention in social media. Which we got, in spades.
Disruptive creative that meets a need and delivers on the brand? #BringIt
Find more of our work at https://www.schoolofthought.com/ciscowebexcampaign.
North Lake Tahoe
Our campaigns brought new life to North Lake Tahoe, increasing hotel room sales by 30%.
Lake Tahoe gets taken for granted. We set out to change that, with arresting, distinctive campaigns for every season.
Find more at https://www.schoolofthought.com/northlaketahoecampaign.
Montage Health
Our TV and print ads blanketed Monterey County. In two months, our campaign’s awareness nearly matched Kaiser’s famed Thrive campaign.
Healthcare advertising can be difficult. The typical approach is an endless stream of smiling patients and doctors, all shaking hands and high-fiving. Thankfully, our clients at Montage Health wanted more than that.
Could we do something different? Even laugh-out-loud funny?
We filmed across the stunning landscape of Monterey County for roughly eight days, trying to imagine what it might look like if an entire county decided to become radically healthier.
Almost like a macro version of Couch to 5K. Just a lot more entertaining. Luckily, laughter is also good for your health.
Find more at https://www.schoolofthought.com/montagehealthcampaign.
SF Environment
Our campaign, spanning outdoor, social, display and web, increased awareness of recycling and composting by 24% in San Francisco.
San Francisco—the most environmentally conscious city in the country, right? Turns out, when it comes to recycling and composting, there’s room for improvement. Especially among transplants—25% of all residents.
How do you change human behavior? Nagging doesn’t work. So we relied on insights about motivation. Turns out, peer pressure works. #SFThingToDo was born.
It captured the attention of residents, as well as local and national press.
Find more at https://www.schoolofthought.com/sfenvironmentcampaign.
Intrepid Travel
We positioned Intrepid as a brand on a mission: give Americans more time off.
How does an Australian company known for adventure travel get Americans to vacation more—and differently?
Our research revealed that American audiences want to travel more, but feel constrained by a culture that limits vacation time.
Our integrated campaign showed how Intrepid’s small group travel makes it possible to fully experience all that a country has to offer, and at an affordable price.
Find more at https://www.schoolofthought.com/sfenvironmentcampaign.
Bridge Bank
In weeks, we crafted a campaign that positioned the brand as “The Entrepreneur’s Bank” that had VCs jumping from rival banks.
Bridge Bank was in a bind. In two weeks, they were about to open their first branch in Atlanta. Oh, and the brand’s look and feel needed a refresh. A tight deadline, but these bankers are terrific partners, and we rallied the troops to make it happen.
After that, we helped the bank launch their flagship branch in downtown San Francisco, an event so successful that at its conclusion we were awarded AOR status.
Bridge Bank is Exhibit A of the School of Thought philosophy: with real partnership, anything is possible.
Find more at https://www.schoolofthought.com/bridgebankcampaign.
Reviews
the project
WordPress Web Redesign for Clean Energy Public Agency
“They had good creative design thinking and familiarity with how to design a site in a simple way.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Our organization's name is Silicon Valley Clean Energy, and we're a public agency that provides clean power to 13 Silicon Valley communities. I’m the director of account services and community relations.
What challenge were you trying to address with School of Thought?
We hired School of Thought to establish new digital channels through which we could engage our residential electricity customers.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They helped us fundamentally redesign our website and expand it to incorporate new customer-facing tools. Another firm did the development, but School of Thought worked very closely with that third-party developer and was part of the process all the way through development. They used WordPress to redesign the website.
What is the team composition?
We worked with 5–6 people, including their CEO, an account manager, and a lead website designer. We also worked with someone on customer surveys, which we used to inform the design. There were one or two other workers, but those were the key roles.
How did you come to work with School of Thought?
They were working with the Building Decarbonization Coalition that we're a member of here in California. It was through that membership that we met and became acquainted with a School of Thought. We liked their work there, so we interviewed them along with others before choosing them.
What is the status of this engagement?
The project ran from January–June 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The new site is up and running, and we're now promoting it through digital outreach. We're already close to 10,000 new unique website users, and people have something to engage with when they come to our site now.
There are more content and tools on the website. The tools include a shopping site for electric vehicles, a marketplace for all-electric appliances, and an online concierge service for the installation of solar and energy or battery storage.
Their work was very clean. It was what we signed them up to do, and they did a very good job of delivering it.
How did School of Thought perform from a project management standpoint?
They used a design tool platform. We communicated largely through email, and we didn't use Slack. For remote interaction, we mainly used Zoom.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They had good creative design thinking and familiarity with how to design a site in a simple way for consumer interaction. It worked pretty well, and we got all the way through to the end of the project.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that would constitute a significant issue. There weren't big surprises, and they didn't come back and said we owed them more money because they did all this or that work that wasn't in the original contract.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
It's important to engage early on design ideas and iterate frequently, so you get into a quick mind-meld in terms of what you want to do design-wise as a customer. Similarly, they need to really understand what you care about.
That iteration is really important early on to have them produce some creative material that you can react to and that you can jointly home in on.
the project
Branding & Advertising Efforts for B2B SaaS Firm
“I can’t imagine going through this with another agency, they were perfect for what we needed.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the senior director of digital marketing for Demandbase. We’re a B2B marketing technology SaaS firm.
What challenge were you trying to address with School of Thought?
We’re doing a marketing campaign where we’re relaunching the company with a new product. We wanted a fresh way of speaking to our market. Our team needed some storytelling and content direction.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The project was under an extremely accelerated timeframe. We gave them very little to work off of. Their team conducted a discovery phase where they helped to synthesize what they heard as we figured it out.
Then, we went through a series of creative rounds. They gave us a number of concepts that were classified by different categories and topics. Ultimately, the deliverables were advertising lines we could use in a number of our campaigns.
What is the team composition?
We worked with a strategist, account manager, copywriter, and designer.
How did you come to work with School of Thought?
I knew one of their internal team members and was familiar with his philosophy. It was clear that how School of Thought works was in line with where we were and what we needed. We didn’t have something baked and structured, so I needed a partner that’d be flexible and could think on their feet.
We considered them along with a number of other agencies and conducted an analysis. Our internal team was impressed with School of Thought’s work because it was so story-driven.
How much have you invested with them?
We invested between $25,000–$50,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
The engagement ran from August–October 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
School of Thought really listened to us and synthesized what we said by asking hard questions. They then reflected that back to us in a way that wasn’t internal speak. Their team is able to take a fresh look at what we’re trying to do and provide an outside perspective and value of getting to the heart of what we need to say.
How did School of Thought perform from a project management standpoint?
Project management was great. They gave us exactly what we needed in terms of setting milestones and then meeting them. Their team worked with us. They were clear about what they needed to be successful and were open to working in our process as well.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They’re very creative. However, they’re more than just that. They also utilize an effective process. The fact that School of Thought is agile and nimble allows them to pivot based on big changes and then still give us what we need. They’re honest and not afraid to push back when they think we might be going in the wrong direction.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, they were the right fit for us. They were stupendous. I can’t imagine going through this with another agency, they were perfect for what we needed.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Be clear about your objectives and set expectations around what you need out of the process. Don’t micromanage; let them do what they do best and just be a partner.
the project
Marketing & Advertising for Nanotechnology Company
“They had great ideas and were able to execute and bring them all together in a timely manner.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the head of sales and marketing for Nanosys. We’re the leading provider of quantum materials into display in other industries. Our products are commercially available in over 10 million units this year.
What challenge were you trying to address with School of Thought?
Every year we have two important industry events and trade shows we participate in — the Consumer Electronics Show and Display Week. We wanted to explore some new and different ideas.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They handled our marketing and advertising efforts for Display Week. First, the School of Thought team talked to us about what we’ve done in the past, how we position our product, and so on. They then came back with about a dozen ideas and pitched those concepts to us. Of those ideas, we ended up doing three of them. Because of COVID-19, this year was our first virtual trade show.
For one of our projects, we wanted our theme to be “giving back.” School of Thought came up with the idea to commission a mural. We went to a school and selected one of their students as the artist. The mural beautified one of the walls in downtown Oakland. With everything that has been going on in our country relating to racial injustice and the pandemic, we thought this was a positive way to show the community we care and are supportive.
The mural has very vibrant colors and part of what we do with our material is we make displays more colorful. We captured all of this with the help of School of Thought by interviewing artists and capturing the painting in a wide color gamut format. We showed this at our trade show and can use it in other marketing promotions to highlight what can be seen with our displays.
What is the team composition?
We worked with six team members. Tom (Partner & ECD) was very much involved throughout the whole process.
How did you come to work with School of Thought?
I learned about them through their marketing efforts. I was intrigued by what they were saying, and we held a first meeting that led to the official engagement.
How much have you invested with them?
We invested a little over $25,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
This engagement lasted from May–June 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We had an over 400% increase in our social media engagement in comparison to previous shows. Naturally, we expected to have a little more from a virtual show, however, it still exceeded our expectations.
It was all extremely successful. School of Thought brought incredible ideas. Our three different concepts allowed us to stand out. An analyst that covered the show said we are a perfect example of how to do a virtual trade show. I was very impressed and delighted with the whole engagement.
How did School of Thought perform from a project management standpoint?
They did a great job. Our project manager was dedicated. She would be up at midnight exchanging emails and updates with my team. They were really on it, thorough, and engaged. Their team had a tight deadline, and it was good to see how responsive and efficient they were at project management.
At the beginning of the engagement, we had Zoom meetings every day as we were finding the concepts. Once it was handed off to the project manager, communication transitioned into more email updates and quick phone calls.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They were super creative. They came with some of the best ideas I’ve heard and seen. School of Thought is experienced and that was apparent in the uniqueness of the ideas they came up with. They had great ideas and were able to execute and bring them all together in a timely manner. There were no surprises, and they stayed within budget limits. It was also great to deal directly with Tom and his team.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, I can’t think of anything. I was sternly impressed.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Go into the engagement with an open mind and use their creativeness to help you think of new ways of approach. We were way more excited about their ideas than the ones we had and that’s because we bit our tongue and decided to see what they could pitch to us. They sincerely are marketing creative geniuses.
the project
Branding & Marketing Strategy for Risk Management Company
"Their ability to translate esoteric, dry work and translate it into compelling content is their strong suit."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
My organization is an actuarial consulting and technology firm. We do risk management consulting and provide related technology to the insurance and healthcare industries. We work with large pension plans. I’m the CMO of the company.
What challenge were you trying to address with School of Thought?
Our most significant project was a multi-year global brand campaign, which was followed by a global rebrand done by another agency.
School of Thought worked with us on a branding campaign designed to elevate our reputation beyond the narrow actuarial space. Actuaries are traditionally thought of as doing maps for insurance companies, and we were trying to position ourselves as doing a wider spectrum of risk management work.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We had a significant amount of video content, so there was a huge digital component of the campaign. This was around the time when digital video advertising was becoming popular. We did a ton of video work with School of Thought and worked on some print advertising as well. Although we phased print out quickly, going with digital almost exclusively by the end of the campaign.
School of Thought came up with the concept for the campaign over many months of working with our marketing committee and senior leadership. They did some market research to validate the concept and then develop stories to support it. From launches to iterations, we collaborated for several years.
This included developing landing pages. Our website at the time wasn’t responsive nor equipped to serve a dynamic landing page for a campaign like this. School of Thought developed a new version, integrating tracking and reporting elements.
The video piece involved shooting case studies on location with clients, which we had limited experience with. It was important to us to create content that could be repurposed across all our channels. We did versions that could be leveraged across all social channels, presentations, and other marketing efforts. Everything was designed to filter down.
We also created ads that could be used in the future. A great example would be self-driving cars and what their impact on the industry would be.
What is the team composition?
We worked with anywhere from 2–7 people from School of Thought, depending on what was happening at the time. There would be more people involved in film shoots. We worked with creative people, filmmakers, and copywriters.
How did you come to work with School of Thought?
I knew someone who knew them when they were just getting started. I was looking for an agency, feeling that larger options wouldn't dedicate their best resources to us and smaller ones didn't seem to have the skills we were looking for.
Even though School of Thought was untested at the time, I threw them to the wolves and had them do a big pitch to a large group of our owners, including the CEO and the chairman. They came through with flying colors, so we rolled the dice with them. It was a big professional risk for me to use them, but it totally paid off. I knew that they’d give me their all, and I knew they were smart and creative.
How much have you invested with them?
The cost over the span of our collaboration is in the $1 million–$5 million range. Some of that includes media cost, so not all the money went to them.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with School of Thought in 2009. I’ve significantly scaled down our marketing budget, and we’re not doing global work anymore, but I still use School of Thought for video work and high-end copywriting needs. All the videos on our website were shot by them.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
School of Thought is well-liked by our consultants because they’re smart and able to grasp esoteric concepts, turning them into provocative ads that grab attention.
All of their creative—whether it was through ad recall studies in print publications, digital creatives, or video—has surpassed our benchmarks significantly. As we moved through the years and pivoted to various strategies, the creative always ranked above the competition, and their ad recall studies were always really strong.
ROI is much harder to gauge in B2B. However, by any measure of creative quality and impact, School of Thought always excelled.
How did School of Thought perform from a project management standpoint?
They’ve always had strong project and account managers, and they’re relatively lean. I always like to work with agencies that provide ready access to creative, account, and media specialists. School of Thought has been really good in that sense.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Tom (Partner, ECD) is an excellent copywriter, and that’s a critical part of an agency. School of Thought is full of strong copywriters. In fact, we launched a new website in January 2020, and many of its headlines and copywriting are things that Tom wrote over the course of these campaigns, which I repurposed because they were so strong.
Their ability to translate esoteric, dry work and translate it into compelling content is their strong suit. They have the intellect to understand the work, along with a creative spark.
The chairman of our firm was inspired to create a mission statement based on the success of the brand campaign. Even though that campaign is no longer in the market, it’s had a lasting impact on our firm.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I’m not sure that I have constructive feedback for them.
Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?
Tom is the main creative mind there, and he has a strong point of view and perspective. We didn’t always agree with each other, but the work was always better because of that. Future clients need a willingness to work with someone with a strong point of view and to listen to that point of view.
the project
Multimedia Comms. Campaigns for Nonprofit Organization
“We can’t say enough good things about the research they provided.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
What challenge were you trying to address with School of Thought?
We hired them to put together a state-wide consumer-focused campaign about educating consumers about the benefits of all-electric living.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The campaign was statewide and appeared on social media, print, video, and radio. The team coordinates 15 different funding partners. They created the creative elements from scratch. The team also created a media buying plan for us, in addition to stakeholder coordination. They provided in-depth consumer preference research, both quantitative and qualitative.
What is the team composition?
We worked with five people from their team.
How did you come to work with School of Thought?
We found them through an RFP process.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent $435,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in February 2019, and our work is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
It was a new area of work for them and they really embraced it. They delivered really high-quality work and we can’t say enough good things about the research they provided. Additionally, they had a great rapport with our funders.
How did School of Thought perform from a project management standpoint?
The team also provided high customer service quality. They were always responsive and there when we needed them.
What did you find most impressive about them?
The consumer preference research was certainly a highlight, especially with how it led to the campaign's development. Their creativity and stakeholder management stands out as well.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, nothing comes to mind.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
They will go the extra mile to deliver but, as a contract manager, you need to be clear about the budget you have. There was one instance where they went over budget because they were trying so hard to deliver and it happened to coincide with the pandemic going down. Make sure you have a good contract manager to account for instances like that.
The website is currently live and has gained around 10,000 new users, thanks to the content and tools that School of Thought designed. The client was impressed with the team’s ability to design a simple website that met their expectations and boosted customer interaction.