It’s not magic. It’s the 23rd try.

We grew up in the world of big, holding-company-owned creative agencies. Places with offices in multiple time zones. Shops where a twenty-five-person meeting was most meetings.

From the outside, there was a lot to admire about those agencies. The offices looked like you would imagine. There were grand, imposing conference rooms. There were encouraging murals on every floor.

On the inside, though, the toll of the last three decades was unmistakable. By the time we arrived, every big three or four-letter agency was owned by something still bigger — something far, far away. CPAs wandered the halls with grim expressions.

Those holding-company-owned agencies were a fascinating paradox: they were enormous and always underresourced. They were obscenely expensive and forever broke. They were supposed to be shapers of culture, and yet they felt fixed in amber in 1990-something.

We saw what we did not want to be.

GOOD WORD is a small creative agency built on faith in big ideas. We were founded on a simple conviction, firmly held: an independent, senior team makes better work. At our agency, the creative partners that founded the company work on projects — not pitches.

We are firmly rooted in the modern world. That means that we shoot for :15 pre-roll as often as we write outdoor. It also requires that design lives at the very center of our work — whether it’s advertising or experiential. A visual, feed-first world demands design excellence as much as a big idea.

We are obsessed with craft. It animates us, inspires us and keeps us up at night. We’re equally fixated on delivering the highest level of execution without outsourcing every frame to a London-based VFX shop or a Hollywood director between movies. We can do more with modest budgets.

We think that excellent creative isn’t mystical or ineffable. It’s usually a combination of open-minded iteration paired with decades of practice. We have a t-shirt that sums it up. It reads: “It’s not magic. It’s the 23rd try.”

Despite our titles, we hope we’re not writers or art directors or media buyers or strategists. We aim to be problem solvers who stew in a business or brand challenge long enough — turning over a dozen possible and defensible solutions — until divergent answers emerge. We want to think, not decorate.  

Above all else: we want to make creative that earns your attention. The world is full of the bland, boring and forgettable. We’re certain that interesting has better ROI. And we want to make it together.