Balancing Growth and Creativity: Inside Familiar Creatures

Justin Levinson (00:00)‍

Hello, welcome friends. Welcome to the Agency Side podcast. My name is Justin Levinson, host of the Agency Side podcast. And I'm here today with Dustin Arts, co-founder and creative director of Familiar Creatures, one of Adweek's fastest growing independent agencies and a shop that's consistently punching above its weight in the national conversation. From standout campaigns for Duke's Mayo and Crunch Fitness to a reputation for smart, strategic, and culturally sharp creative, they've carved out a distinct voice in the industry. Thanks so much for being here today, Dustin.

‍

Dustin Artz (00:29)‍

Thanks for having me. Yeah. Nailed the intro. ⁓

‍

Justin Levinson (00:32)‍

I

appreciate it. So yeah, let's get right into it. Maybe just for the folks who might not be familiar with your agency, maybe you can just tell us a little bit about a little bit more about you guys are doing.

‍

Dustin Artz (00:43)‍

Yeah, we are based in Richmond, Virginia. We started in 2018. We're called Familiar Creatures. And what we do is outsmart brand behemoths. So I was, I've been around in advertising since the early 2000s. I went to VCU Brand Center in Richmond, which is where I ended up, but kind of worked all over on the West coast. worked at Chi-A-Thay, I worked at Team One, place called Omelette.

I worked at McKinney on the East coast and at the Martin agency where I worked for a while for a good chunk of years. met my partner and co-founder Justin Bajin, who's a writer. I'm an art director. So we loved, we found out when we worked on Geico and some other campaigns that we just worked really well together, fast, same sensibility, same humor level, strategic kind of look.

at brands and always wanted to know more. it just kind of serendipitously, he was, I was freelancing, he was freelancing and we had an opportunity and we wanted a niche and we really enjoyed when we worked at the big agencies, working on some of the smaller ones, which for the big holding company agencies are still, you know, almost international brands. The smallest budgets there are still household names. So, you know, the Mentos is the Sabras, the

He worked on Kia, know, Tic Tac, those little brands that still have a tremendous amount of media weight, but they are up against big competition. They need a punch above their weight and oftentimes were understaffed at the bigger places. So we just thought there was a real nips there in terms of media weight and talent level. So that's what we aimed for. I've been doing this seven years, like I

‍

Justin Levinson (02:33)‍

Yeah, that's cool. So is your other co-founder, is he located in Richmond as well?

‍

Dustin Artz (02:40)‍

Yeah, we, yeah, we all, I could turn the camera around here, but we're in an office, which is really throwback these days where we're in this area called Scott's edition in Richmond. Kind of like a bunch of breweries and new growth. And we all sort of work here. We have, I think there's just 12 of us, but we freelance a bunch and always have, when you're small, you're kind of freelancing different roles.

And so we, we all work together here and it's kind of fun because we'll come on a call with a new client and they'll be surprised because we're all like sitting around a table and they're all like a Brady bunch on different videos. So we, strongly believe in having a culture and especially for younger folks, like growing them and having them sort of learn and having all the nuances of communication that happen. It's, it's so much quicker to be in person. we're, we're.

‍

Justin Levinson (03:40)‍

upon it. Yeah, and how many people in the agency altogether?

‍

Dustin Artz (03:43)‍

Well, we always, we've been like 12 to 15 the past, um, you know, year or so, um, we started with just Justin and I, so have really kind of worked up and we grow every year. so, uh, we're small, but we're mighty. Um, and like I said, there's certain roles like strategy and production that we bring people on that are specialists and we just.

From 20 year careers, Justin and I have a big Rolodex and we can just bring in people who we've worked with in the past who we know are awesome.

‍

Justin Levinson (04:18)‍

Yeah, that's really cool. Are you still doing, you know, I know your path has been sort of from, from design, art director, creative director to agency owner. Are you still doing hands-on work at all? Are you sort of just kind of calling the shots at this point?

‍

Dustin Artz (04:33)‍

I wish man, it's, walked by like, I'll walk out and I'll see creatives working together. I'll be like, that was a fun time. It's a weird, it's a weird thing in this industry where, and I guess other creative industries, but like you get into it too. I love coming up with ideas. I was just like always writing stuff down. I loved executing stuff, putting on headphones, designing and stuff. And then if you own an agency though, you.

You're increasingly in more meetings because you're trying to touch lots of things and you're juggling different hats. So my partner does new business and I'm more, he, he, we're both creative directors and we split accounts here, but he deals with new business and outreach and I deal with, you know, operational efficiency. So I'm, I'm a weird creative, but also finance and operations person. So it's, you, you wear a lot of that.

So I wish I did more hands-on creative sometimes when we don't have the heart, like if there are the holidays and we have something that is a real quick turn and our teams are loaded, like Dustin and I will be like, well, this will be fun. It'll be like a quick, so we'll go back into that mix. But yeah, it's something that I miss. I miss doing the hands-on creative work, but you know, we're in every creative director meeting. So we're always trying to plus up the work, but you know, the difference is you're like, well, take it or leave it. Cause you don't want to just be like,

Run with my idea now, you know? That's bad for morale.

‍

Justin Levinson (06:00)‍

Yeah, I get that. How did it feel in that one, I guess that year or so you were freelancing before you ended up starting your agency? What was that like, I guess? Did it feel like a jump to kind of leave one of those big traditional ad agencies and to sort of be kind of on your own that time? Or were you kind of comfortable being freelance? how did that... Thanks for tuning in, folks. This episode is brought to you by Coming Up Creative, a relationship first.

Boutique Creative Recruitment Agency. We disrupt the creative ecosystem by running sophisticated multi-channel campaigns with custom video and voice outreach that actually gets responses. We actively market the agencies and brands we represent to help them stand out to today's industry's top talent, all backed by real human connection and AI-powered targeting. If you're ready for a modern recruitment approach, visit www.comingupllc.com and get started today.

‍

Dustin Artz (06:57)‍

I think there's, I'm a more introverted type. so I really love the kind of the mercenary aspect of, of freelance because you can, it's very transactional. So the things you hear from freelancers are when you work at a big agency, sometimes there's a culture, sometimes there's favoritism, there's politics. There's, you know, all this other like staff meetings and town hall stuff. And sometimes you just like, I just want to do the work, man.

want to do all this, but so you don't have to deal with that. So I like that aspect. actually like organizing my time and being very structured. At the same time, you miss the people you miss like being with people day to day and like learning from people that you wouldn't necessarily do that in the freelance life. And I think like, it just kind of sucks to work on something and then love it then have a vision for how it should be executed. And then it's just like.

Okay. You know, now take it from here. And then you're somebody else is executing your work and you're happy because it's like, Hey, the transaction was done. I made money. I made you happy. I'm you get less like angry because it is what it is. At the same time, you don't have the ownership. it's, and then the biggest thing is if you can manage the anxiety is what I've heard just from talking to a lot of people. It's the pandemic has really helped freelancing because of working from home and it's

‍

Justin Levinson (08:01)‍

Yeah.

Yeah.

‍

Dustin Artz (08:25)‍

You know, things are always getting more splintered and faster and now you can live kind of everywhere just like you're doing in Vermont. And I think that's great because it's like feast or famine sometimes where you have all these jobs in a row and then you have to wait. And then it's like, you're not doing anything. And if you're somebody who's used to like going 300 miles an hour, which a lot of creatives and advertising are, it's a lot of

adjustment to be like, I have nothing to do. What do I do? I need to be a salesman now. I have to be a salesman and get people to like me so that I, they'll invite me back. You know, it's like to, there's a whole other hustle aspect to it, but I think it's cool that it's become easier. Used to be just like the Uber talented were freelance because they had demand. And now I think it's, you know, is that an adage?

conference in Toronto last week and this place, Murder Hornet won and they're just like proudly on the surface, just pro like we use freelancers for every job. Yeah. And it's not a liability as much anymore. Like I do think it's hard to sell most clients on like, wait, so there's no long-term institutional knowledge about my brand. So that's really hard to sell.

But if you can somehow spin it to be faster, more nimble and make it worth it, like it's amazing that that exists now. you, it's not just like five holding company shops that you want to work in anymore. There's just so many.

‍

Justin Levinson (09:57)‍

which is cool. Yep. That does seem like a new, a new model where a lot of agencies are kind of doing that. Yeah. Which is interesting. But then there are also a lot of agencies that are also very protective of their assets and stuff that they're working on and they don't want to just farm that off to anybody.

‍

Dustin Artz (10:11)‍

I get both sides. AORs, I worked on Geico, that's where I met my partner and they had such a good relationship with the Martin Agency. They had worked together for 25 years and so there was just a level of trust that is rare when the client just like implicitly trusts the agency to be thinking about their business all the time and to be proactive and not just like...

bilking them per hour. So it's like, it's very special because I think you can take more risks and have more like home runs as opposed to just like singles and doubles. But so I'm a strong proponent of it, but I also know that the drawback of that sometimes is it's slow, it's inefficient. There's like group think and you know, so I think both models are have their benefits and

‍

Justin Levinson (10:57)‍

Yeah. When you were freelancing, were you doing that from Richmond or were you still living in Los Angeles?

‍

Dustin Artz (11:03)‍

Yeah,

no, I was in Richmond and I was lucky because for the longest time, the Martin agency was kind of the only shop in town. So if you got laid off or if you chose to leave, I chose to leave because I was there seven years and I loved them. just was ready for something new. And so then I could freelance at, you know, Martin and arts and letters and other places. And it's really nice when you're in a city that you have a bunch of contacts and you can go in and you can pop around.

yeah, so I, I enjoyed it. I liked it. And then also there's always an opportunity cost to everything you choose. So like, you are at a place and you feel like you're not growing anymore, the opportunity cost is, you know, what else you could be doing. So in that time when I was freelancing, I have a brother who like draws, he does packaging design and he's like, it was just like a small one, two person shop and

devil's backbone, one of his clients got acquired by AVM bev. They forced like an RFP. then I, because I was freelance, I was like, I can do this. I'll put it to you together. And then I helped him win the design portion. And then I effectively started my own agency to do the advertising portion with Justin. So that being nimble and not being in a having to

to decide with your family, like, oh, do I give up in point, you know, it just makes you more of a seize opportunity when it's there. You know, of course the downside is if there are not, it's a mixed bag.

‍

Justin Levinson (12:37)‍

Yeah,

are you from Richmond? you from Virginia?

‍

Dustin Artz (12:42)‍

from like suburbs of Philly is where I feel, I guess where a lot of my personality derives from. Like, but I moved to Northern Virginia when I was like 10. And then so went to Virginia undergrad schools, went to Brandt center, and then my family was always in Virginia. So I ended up moving back here from Los Angeles because

I realized all of my vacation, was just spending going to visit family and I loved it out on the West coast, man, but here I could own a house. could have a lot more. And I worked so much in LA that it was like, I didn't even see the city. So it was like, do you want to go to a city with less options? But honestly, Richmond's grown a ton because I think post pandemic people from New York, Austin.

LA, Chicago, or like, wait, there's really good food there. You can afford a lot of stuff. So Richmond is a, is a really great place to be right now.

‍

Justin Levinson (13:38)‍

Yep. I have a very similar story, which kind of brought me to Vermont with sort of kids. there a place to buy a home that's, that's a little bit more affordable and know, cost of living is still pretty high here, but in general it's, it's not too shabby. And yeah, during the pandemic, was like everybody on my block, all the houses were getting purchased by people from like Los Angeles, New York, people started like fleeing. And for some folks it was tricky, I think, because, um, you know, a lot of companies they were sort of told like, oh, you know, now

of the pandemic you can fully work remote you can go wherever you want to and then a lot sort of we're like well by the way we actually kind of want you to come back for like three days so

‍

Dustin Artz (14:16)‍

I

had friends from Austin, New York, trying to think of another, I had a few friends and they moved back to Richmond, bought a house during, I was like, it's really bold. And then those maneuvers started happening and they're like, well, I'm here now, man. can't. So some, some were able to work it out and some weren't. So.

‍

Justin Levinson (14:26)‍

Yeah

Definitely created a whole other kind of thing. guess when I was so glad.

‍

Dustin Artz (14:41)‍

I was just going to say it's interesting being an owner and employer because like I we're not like a butts in seats place where it's like you need to show up and you know, if you're not doing work it's but like like we don't really care about that. But what you do find invaluable is just creating a culture where everyone interacts with each other and gets to know each other and learns from each other and has fun with each other. It makes.

all the work and it makes the client interactions. It just makes it so much more special. And as everyone kind of, as the industry is just fragmenting into screens all over the place, it's like, an agency owner, it's like, well, you know, what makes these screens better than these screens? You know what I mean? There's no, there's no thing binding them together. Even the big agencies now it's like, they go in once or twice a week and it's like,

‍

Justin Levinson (15:21)‍

Yeah.

‍

Dustin Artz (15:36)‍

It's a crapshoot, you know, like it's becoming more of a, a freelance, an aggregated freelance model. And I think that secret is kind of out now. So I, we, we like having a culture. like having clients like our Duke's client can come over and come like have a drink after work or something. And that's just invaluable because there's other things besides a 30 minute video call about that project that you can talk about and kind of relate about.

So in general, we're strong components of it. Of course, rent is expensive.

‍

Justin Levinson (16:10)‍

Yeah.

But I like that collaborative idea and also being able to spend time with the client and make them feel like they really know you as a human being and you're not just on a Zoom screen, because I think that would be kind of lost these days.

‍

Dustin Artz (16:24)‍

Yeah. And one of the, the downs, the worst thing you can be as an agency is like a vendor and you want to be a partner. And I think when you're, you have some free time, you are showing that you think about things in lots of ways, not just for this one task that I need this vendor to take care of. And I'm just going to bid for that project. You know, it's like, it's

It's just more comprehensive when you have a relationship like that. can touch on other things.

‍

Justin Levinson (16:58)‍

Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. When you, know, with you and your, your partner, when you went on your own, what was sort of like the, when you're starting to scale, what sort of was like the thing you kind of needed when you were like, I got to, we need somebody to take some to delegate something to what, did that look like?

‍

Dustin Artz (17:10)‍

First.

it was so hard because as an art director, had a real control problem and wanted to touch everything. so, you know, I think our first couple hires, we had like an account person because essentially we were getting more and more work. And then when we're doing the work, we can't interact, interface with the client as much. And so we had an account person who could do scheduling and things, lot of client relations stuff and, and just general strategy.

But then it was always, man, I'm going way back now because this was like seven, seven years ago. But then there's kind of a two creatives versus one account person sort of thing. You have to let go of like the, in the big agencies, it's like creative is always mad at the accountant. It's just, and how it's not how you run a business on a smaller scale. So we had to learn that. Then we had, we started doing just more creative. And at first we were.

Justin and I would be the account person. So it's like, you have direct access to a creative director account hybrid. And then we, you know, essentially get more and more work and we started bringing on creatives. And even now we're like 75 % creatives in here because I think we are, we really utilize Slack and resource management tools to like monday.com to like really allocate a bandwidth.

which a lot of the bigger agencies aren't, are not as good at. They can just kind of throw a bunch of people at a problem. But for us, it's like, we need to be very, it's gotta be almost like a production company level. This person is working on this for this much time and this and this and this. So we got a lot better at managing. and so we have more creatives and then it, then it's like more Justin and our, my wheelhouse where it's like, we know how to do the writer's room, the creative stuff.

But I think we've really had to learn leadership, how to make a culture. We kind of crashed and burned with the first few couple of hires. and I'd say in the last three or four years, we've learned how to recruit, how to hire, how to, you know, pay people, how to use, benefits, how to do HR when they're here, how to, know, like it's, it's all, I love learning different, I don't know, as a creative.

‍

Justin Levinson (19:33)‍

Yeah.

‍

Dustin Artz (19:40)‍

You're usually doing the same task every day. It's like, I'm an art director. come up with ideas and I design them for brands. And it's cool because all the brands change and they're different problems, but it's all the same kind of work. And after about, you know, 15 years doing that job, maybe like 13 years, it's just like, okay, how do I use my brain in other ways? Because I have sort of a business background as well. And it's like, how do I optimize the system?

so that it's different than what we did before in our other career paths and more built for today. And so it just became fun for me. But at first it's like anything when you first learning how to be a creative, you suck. And it's like, usually when you're learning something new, you're horrible. And it's like being a manager, nobody really goes to be a creative to be a manager. So it's like, how do you be a manager? Other professions are much better at it because they're not like,

rogue creatives who really want to put their stamp on something and let their voice be known in the world. It's like a lot of people are more farmer types. Yeah. And you kind of need in a creative industry to assemble a bunch of hunter types. And it's like, how do you manage them and give empower them so they feel like they're not just doing your dirty work or whatever. it's tricky, man. It's super tricky.

‍

Justin Levinson (21:04)‍

Yeah, it's a real thing. I mean, I can, I can relate to it because, you know, I worked for another recruiting agency for like a lot of years and I was just, you know, a sales person basically. And I worked there and you know, my thing was like, yeah, I'm never going to, I never considered doing something on my own. Cause I was just like, I'd have to learn QuickBooks. I'd have to learn how to do this. I'd have to like come up with these different software and I've tried new software and I've got to like learn all these things. Like this is, I'm a creative person. There's no way. Yeah. How somebody with my brain.

is capable of like leading other people on a mission. Like it seems like, you know, even, you know, I just felt like a, like a child, that. so I can kind

‍

Dustin Artz (21:44)‍

Embrace the beginner's mind.

‍

Justin Levinson (21:47)‍

Yeah, but it is kind of cool and you do kind of learn, you see who is a fit culturally, who, you know, for me, letting go is the same thing. I think maybe it's not just creatives, but I think all leaders sometimes can almost be like the bottleneck in their own company because it's so hard to let go. I'm not a controlling person, but I understand what you're saying. mean, for me, it counts.

‍

Dustin Artz (22:04)‍

I don't know, I can be a little-

‍

Justin Levinson (22:11)‍

can be difficult to let go to because it's like, oh, these are my, they're my relations. built them and you don't want them to feel like they've been cast aside. Like, oh, why don't you just talk to my other person because they're used to seeing you. And a lot of times they can feel like, wow, I don't have, I used to see Dustin, but now I'm seeing this other person. feel like.

‍

Dustin Artz (22:15)‍

Yeah, my people!

Yeah,

we used to get the co-founders. Now we have another people like maybe they're not worth it. Or up on the flip side as an owner, you're like, if I'm empowering my people too much, they have all the institutional knowledge and if they leave, it's like what is kept. it's, it's really tricky. But at the same time, in order for something to operate, you have to learn to delegate. have to learn. I think I,

I don't know what point I learned this, but there was something where it's like, it might've been in a psych one-on-one class or something, but it was talking about doctors. And it's not like doctors know more information than when you come out of school, but their expertise comes from knowing where to use their time and like where to quickly be like, I'm going to invest my knowledge here because this is important. This can be subbed out for someone else. I don't need to pay attention to this. So I free up my bandwidth here. So it's more like.

like a structural game than just like, need to know everything. Yeah. And so I think that's part of it too, because you're, you're right. You're like, this is my client relationship. And I think Justin and I both have had to learn to empower and delegate, but at the same time, you have to check in with them. They can't feel like they're on an island. You have to help them. You have to, you know, like you have to listen. And there's the, the other tricky thing is there's all, everyone's different. So someone

We're like big Myers-Briggs types people, but some people learn with details and if you don't give them enough details, they feel like you're giving them short shrift and not caring about them. But then other people just want the over the, I'm talking about S and N types now, but they just want the overview. They don't need to be led through everything. then they're, you know, so I guess the greater point is everyone's different and you kind of have to learn even creatives, like some creatives.

need like a little softer touch and some thrive when like the stakes are high and you know, like don't really care when, when they're like the typical creative, when it's like, got two weeks to do a project and they don't touch it till the last week, like the last couple of days. So you have to learn to manage all the types. it's, it's tough, man. It's, it's a lot tougher than just kind of coming up with a cool idea.

‍

Justin Levinson (24:45)‍

Yeah, Do you, yeah, I think I like, read that book, what was like the four hour work week or something. got made up. Look, it looked pretty like when I read those, I this seems like pretty easy to do, but it's, you know, it's not, maybe you could, be interested in, I know you mentioned monday.com is a tool and other thoughts about other, there's other ones like a son and stuff to you. lot of companies.

‍

Dustin Artz (25:05)‍

We had a sauna for a minute. Sometimes it's like you try it and then when you just realize nobody's using it, you're like, okay, let's get rid of that. But yeah, and then there's certain things that just take time. So you need to invest in a project manager to learn it. So yeah, we use like Slack and a sauna Slack. Everyone kind of lives in Slack and then you have to manage Slack. it's not like where the hell was that thread I was talking on? And I used to, I like,

‍

Justin Levinson (25:28)‍

Yeah, totally.

‍

Dustin Artz (25:32)‍

not to date myself because I'm not that old, like I entered, I started working at McKinney in 2005 and like I had a system as a creative, like I read every email and nothing gets past me because every email I will like star it or put it in the folder or whatever. But then when Slack came, have email and Slack and you have text messages now with, and you're like, I don't know. Like if you let go of one ball, it's like, shit, this was due.

Yeah, you know, it's just harder and harder to like Yeah, so you a tolerance for not having everything figured out is something i'm really had to learn because As an art director when you have like two or three projects. It's like you can be on top of everything But like now I have 50 things and it's like just being comfortable With all these things in the air and just being like, this is just the job

‍

Justin Levinson (26:03)‍

not.

Are there other tools in your tech stack that what like maybe what your designers are using, creatives are using, know, what else does that.

‍

Dustin Artz (26:31)‍

I

mean, you always have creative cloud and we've, you know, the AI things where we do, we use as tools. So mid journey and chat, GBT, I use chat GBT all day long, but like, I'm trying to re we've, we've dabbled in lots of things, you know, even like new business wise, like windmo and, yeah, there's a lot of, I don't know, so many.

‍

Justin Levinson (26:54)‍

Yeah. Is, is WinMo like a multi-channel sort of, business development tool?

‍

Dustin Artz (26:59)‍

Yeah. And you have to really realize what you're going to invest in. Cause a lot of these things are tens of thousands of dollars and it's like, what's the return. That's like a basically gives backgrounds on all the marketing people moving around and gives you alerts and then gives psychological profiles and then tries our before AI. We loved having media spends competitive media spends for any client under the sun. And then there's

We have sales contacts and there's, there's software like zoom info that knows every email on earth. Cause they have these little bot really creepy to know about, but it's like, know, the whole chain of command. Cause it's like crawling the internet. don't really deal with that anymore because we, learned cold calling. We had a, we had a period where we're like, we would just like, try to do some straight up sales in the very beginning when we felt really qualified for something. And it's like, we just live in such a business where when

It just, it's so trust-based and relationship-based that you look like in, when you're in advertising and you're an unknown, you look like such a, um, uh, shady character. You're like, just like, who are you? Why are you spamming me? How'd you get my email? You know, and then she's like, okay. So we like to, um, experiment. You know, we like to try, we've done like airport ads, like poking fun at bigger agencies. We've, we've done out of home.

‍

Justin Levinson (28:07)‍

Yeah.

‍

Dustin Artz (28:25)‍

boards in other Richmonds across the nation to show that we do like national work, with like the charm of a local person. like we, we, we, we love to take like when Justin and I, one of the nice things about like being creative is like, we'll make an idea and we'll be like, okay, approved. do it. So it's, um,

‍

Justin Levinson (28:44)‍

I'm interested in the double click on the cold call thing. So you're saying you actually have done cold calls or you're...

‍

Dustin Artz (28:49)‍

Well,

I'd say it's 2025 where at one point we were like, how do we, we knew our niche and we were like these, um, this is a vertical that we think we have a ton of experience in. have a ton of work in from past lives. What if we make like a, uh, a website, like a, its own little, uh, siloed site and

just approach people and then use like a sales communication with like different touch points, track them in HubSpot and just try and make networking, whatever. And it was just like such a time suck, but this was when we had all the time in the world and we weren't established yet. And it was like, why don't we try some traditional methods? And, and it was just like, this isn't the way to go about it. Other places can, but I think the kind of clients you get, we've also done that with SEO stuff where I'm giving, I'm revealing a lot of stuff, but.

You know, where you're trying to create a, you give something if you get an email from them and then you see like, did anyone kind of give our

Give us like anyone reputable, give us their email and contact info who want, who is interested. And the majority of them, you're like, man, is Google just making up these contacts? It's it's just such a black box of like, how did, is this even real? You know? And so we've, we've tried everything from, because we try to market like a business, like something that you don't learn in, in the advertising world is from the big guys. So

‍

Justin Levinson (30:12)‍

Yeah.

‍

Dustin Artz (30:25)‍

We've collectively worked at so many holding company agencies and it's like all of them, their new business comes from RFPs where because of their big media companies, they're just invited and it's one after the other. They rarely ever have to do research, go proactively, go after something. And because it all comes to them. it's like,

In the beginning, we're like, this is like any other business. do we, how do we have sales? How do we like go after the things we want? How do we at least network in these areas? Cause you're always, you're always hunting. That's pretty secret is when you don't have RFPs just lined up based on your size and your media capabilities, it's like you better be connecting with people all the time and getting yourself up there. So, but out to this shout out to this podcast.

‍

Justin Levinson (31:02)‍

Yeah.

Yeah.

‍

Dustin Artz (31:17)‍

if anything comes of it. Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a long game. It's like awareness advertising. It's, it's a long game. So you just hope in, in 10 years people are like, Oh yeah, I've heard of those guys. They work on Dukes.

‍

Justin Levinson (31:28)‍

Yeah.

I like that approach. I really do. And I think that, um, you know, I tell candidates who, know, uh, you know, and it's with anything if I'm as a recruitment agency or a candidate or a company is sort of like really narrowed down like a dream 100, you know, if like the a hundred places that you would kill it with and to really learn everything about those companies, um, and not to spam them, but to find a way to

to break through, you know, and obviously something I'm, I always swear to is referrals. Cause that's always the greatest thing. Like if you make a good impression from somebody who knows somebody else that one lead is always really, it's always easier than a cold lead. And so I'm, I'm a big fan of that. Well, while we have the last 10 minutes, want to, pivot for, for a quick second. I've been really appreciate all the strategy insights. ⁓

‍

Dustin Artz (32:13)‍

Yeah.

Very

interested in areas that most people don't. So.

‍

Justin Levinson (32:25)‍

And

that's, that's kind of, know, well, I think it's, really valuable for, for one, as somebody why I was kind of double clicking on while you were freelancing is because we, you know, we work with a lot of freelancers. and a lot of times, you know, they are hoping to maybe launch their own company and kind of how does that work? What does that look like? You know, obviously it's very common in, you know, traditional brand agencies where a, you know, someone like more of an associate or something that was more on the copy side, one on the design side that worked with each other.

And then they, kind of made a lot of times they bounced to different companies together. And oftentimes we'll recruit two people at once for these different opportunities. But sometimes they don't see like how they can start their own agency and what a skilling that look like and what does business development look like. So I think that value really speaks to people that might be in that position. All right. Cool. But the other thing I wanted to click on, double click on is really just some of like the work you guys are doing. maybe I'd be curious on like what, you know, maybe campaigns you've been most.

‍

Dustin Artz (33:02)‍

Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (33:23)‍

proud of kind of getting to the accolades section.

‍

Dustin Artz (33:26)‍

Yeah, I mean, I would just lead with Dukes. Dukes is up here at any rate. Love that. Yeah. We do so much for them. that's what last week in Toronto at the adage, small business, we gave a panel, Justin and I and our client Rebecca, because that brand we came on in 2021 and it really exemplifies what we do. They, know, Dukes mayonnaise is hardly known.

throughout the country. It's really well known in the South because it's been around for, since 1917. And Hellman's is far and away the biggest. And then the second biggest is Best Foods, which is just Hellman's in like another part of the country. And then there was like Miracle Whip and Kraft. so when we started, Dukes was just getting some private equity money, which is its own, you know, hurdle to learn how to operate within that world. But

We came on and we took a, didn't have much media money, you know, a fraction, probably a 40th of what Hellman's had at the time, you know, and we just took a, how do we make all these activations? So like, let's do like a restaurant event with tomatoes and mayo because that's like a Southern tradition. So we called that hot tomato summer. A lot of people get Duke's tattoos. Let's give out free tattoos.

Like let's do a lot of people, a lot of chefs love Duke. So let's do a whole video series documenting like these iconic restaurants and then shoot them in the back of the house and have the, chefs curse and just be themselves because there's some real love there. So it was just like a very grassroots strategy as to hell, as opposed to Hellman top down strategy.

And just built a lot of brand love. And then some of the accolades are Dukes is the fastest growing since we started working with them. They've had double digit growth in units and sales. And, you know, that's not all us. That's like funding obviously as well, but like being beloved does not help. They are, they passed crap. So they're now third behind Hellman's and Best Foods, which was so far off when we started. they just got purchased again because Dukes is like,

the shiny object within that, the portfolio sour that contains them. And then they're also getting these you gov like most persuadable brands and most search after brands. So things like that, that are really kind of the proof is in the pudding. So a lot of times in advertising, you can fake it by like capturing impressions and headlines. And it's like as owners, you can't really do that anymore. It has to, you know,

There used to be a ton of awards. would see one at Cannes and then the agency has dumped the next year and you're like, well, that clearly, you know, helped them, but didn't help the business. So you have to do both. And so we're really proud. We view ourselves as kind of underdogs as well. So having a challenger brand mentality, we, they were a feisty underdog brand archetype that were challenger brand archetype that we chose for them. And just kind of poking at Hellmans and

You know, they, went into football and now Hellman's basically copies everything Dukes does. And we just have such a fraction of the money, but it's just because we're smarter. We're quicker. We're more dedicated. We have less layers. You know, I can't imagine getting running through the Hellman's layers and then the Unilever and you know, like it seems like a nightmare. And it's just like, it's all the stuff as a creative at the big agencies you hated when you would work six months.

And then the CEO where the CMO would see it and be like, this isn't the breach start over. It's just like, why didn't we just talk to him six months ago? You know, so that's, love Dukes. We love Crunch because that was a brand that, you know, is a national brand, but their positioning was judgment, no judgments and Planet Fitness basically stole their IP and did judgment free zone after.

Planet Fitness is another huge behemoth in the category. Same color scheme, sort of same price point. And we've taken Crunch from just like getting smarter at strategy, choosing a new positioning, getting franchise buy-in, which is really tough, and just doing good emotional work. We've taken them from seventh in brand awareness to two in like two years with Crunch.

It's always, this isn't just us, it's like partnership with them and a lot of smart leadership on their point. Because clients really determine at the end of the day, like what gets made as good as you are at selling. Like you don't want to fool them into buying something and they don't love it and don't believe in it. it's, so I think we're most proud of those things. But also just FC's growth. Like we pride ourselves as a brand and

taking a niche and getting known for it and then having proven success is for us, we love because a lot of the big agencies we come from are generalists and they don't have a lane. It's just anything we get, you know, we're going to do, whether it's fashion or sports or cars or apparel or whatever, we, you know, we'll do whatever. And it's like, I think we really look for a kind of brand that has potential to be beloved.

that we can move emotionally that is within a set media range and that has like a challenger mentality that wants to level up. guess, Bubba Burger, I'm proud of too. they, like them because they're a number one in frozen food, but we don't, we don't view that as a number one because it's like, man, frozen burgers are just one piece of like a whole convenience frozen food section.

We love working with it. So anyway, I just like having a niche and then having brands start to self-select and be like, they're perfect for us as opposed to being like we can, we'll do whatever comes our way.

‍

Justin Levinson (39:26)‍

You know, yeah, love that. Maybe just to close out, you can tell me a little bit about what you like to do for fun outside of working. What do you like to, your hobbies or interests?

‍

Dustin Artz (39:37)‍

So I'm a runner, but I, I was, I do a lot of stuff outside. We were a very pro work life balance, mental health aware sort of place. It's how we can attract big talent and then also keep a happy workforce. And so I'm a runner, I tore my meniscus playing soccer in a men's league. So that sucks, but I, I love to rock climb as well. So I would say running and rock climbing are my big ones.

The reason I like them both is because we're so used to in this industry being in our heads. And a lot of times you're just making like PDFs that never see the light of day. Although we have a really high hit rate with making work here. It's just like being present in the moment and not thinking ahead and not just being up in your head often never, never land, whatever. It's nice to be in the real world. So I enjoy those things. I'm with my kids. I have two awesome kids and um,

‍

Justin Levinson (40:29)‍

Yeah, ⁓

‍

Dustin Artz (40:35)‍

I try and be a really good dad for them. that's, that's the, that's the, those things kind of balance out when you're trying to get all stressed out about something that's really just communications at the end of the day. So, ⁓

‍

Justin Levinson (40:49)‍

Yeah.

Yep. Awesome, man. Well, I really appreciate your time, Dustin. You're very easy to talk to and I really enjoyed hearing all your insights and being on here and speaking with us today.

‍

Dustin Artz (40:56)‍

thank you.

You too, hopefully people enjoy some of the nitty gritty stuff that I never really get into.

‍

Justin Levinson (41:07)‍

Yeah, man. think, I think they will appreciate the time today. All right, man. All right. Bye.

‍

Dustin Artz (41:11)‍

Awesome,