Becoming a National Marketing Agency

Becoming a national advertising firm has always been our goal. We only started in 2009 and we’ve already been named one of the best advertising agencies in Austin. Let me make something clear: it has never been easy. It’s never been glamorous and it’s never been about being cool. It’s been straight up hard work, long hours but mainly it’s been about constantly optimizing everything: your brand, your content strategy, your social campaign, and down to where you should be priced at. We’ve found something that works and it’s paying off.

Rock Candy Media now has clients across Texas, New York, Southern California, Ohio and Silicon Valley.

How did we get here? By actually listening to clients (it’s harder than it seems), doing what’s best for them and not your portfolio, growing their businesses and rewarding a team of smart, flexible creatives who not only own both sides of the brain but actually think creatively, rather than just talk about it.

The funny thing is, we went national by accident.

Last fall, we pitched a campaign to Austin landmark Dobie Center. They chose to go with a more traditional agency. We didn’t sweat it, some brands like to take the “safe” route. (If you consider wasting time and money on bad strategy that doesn’t get you any ROI a safe route.)

Two months later, we got a call from Dobie. The traditional agency wasn’t cutting it and they wanted us back, and admitted to using our campaign we pitched. We forgave them and moved forward.

After a few weeks of RCM magic, we got a call from the group who owned Dobie at the time. They needed rebranding for themselves and they wanted us to help them do it. The parent company turned out to be an NYC-headquartered international commercial real estate investment firm that has done over $200 billion of business since 1991.

As we worked with them to bring their brand into the 21st century, they recommended us to one of their property management groups based in Columbus, Ohio – our second national client.

From there, we started piling them up. Carlton sold Dobie, so we jumped in with their new Long Beach based owners. We added a tech company based in San Francisco and continue to snare new clients from all over the country.

Not bad for a digital marketing company from Austin, Texas. It proves what I’ve always said, if you hire good people and do good work, people will take notice.