Pound & Grain Digital: Creative Marketing Solutions

B.C.’s lack of corporate HQs is less dire for specialized shops. When the marketplace for business services contains only a few large clients and their correspondingly large suppliers, smaller companies have to find alternatives in order to survive.

By Tony Wanless / December 31, 2012

B.C.’s lack of corporate HQs is less dire for specialized shops.

When the marketplace for business services contains only a few large clients and their correspondingly large suppliers, smaller companies have to find alternatives in order to survive.

B.C. is notorious for its scarcity of big players for service businesses to chase. Many small providers never see big growth because they discover that under their generalist business models there simply isn’t enough work to sustain them. But as one small service company discovered, there is business out there for those companies that are agile, creative and willing to focus.

The Problem

Workers in bigger companies feel the entrepreneurial itch and flee their large employers to form new small businesses. But Vancouver lacks the head offices of Toronto and even Calgary, so there is little big-budget marketing work to support small service companies. As a result, competitors vie for small and medium-sized clients who want to emulate the large companies, but don’t have their marketing or financial power. Most new companies provide a range of services to cast a wide net and bring in customers.

The Solution

In 2010, Graham MacInnes, Jackson Murphy and Tara Steinberg left their advertising jobs and formed an agency called Pound & Grain Digital Inc. in Gastown. The trio were tired of cookie-cutter solutions desired by large clients who wanted “safe” advertising, and decided to specialize as creative providers for clients who wanted marketing with more zip. Pound & Grain committed to encompassing cultural shifts stemming from the social, mobile and digital revolutions.

They already had a reputation for such work in the area and it wasn’t long before that buzz nabbed a client: YYoga. A new chain of yoga studios started by music impresario Terry McBride, YYoga was on a growth curve and needed to keep the momentum going – something different and creative to catch the attention of a young, health-conscious and plugged-in market. Pound & Grain delivered – and is still delivering – as the chain has expanded to 12 studios.

The contract with YYoga established Pound & Grain as a creative operation and launched it on a path that quickly overwhelmed the founders’ original three-year growth plan. Their specialization in non-traditional approaches to mobile, gaming and socially led projects that bigger agencies were reluctant to pursue had landed them impressive clients like Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Rutgers University and Telus.

Pound & Grain realized the need to bring in professional management. Enter Sandy Fleischer, a 16-year marketing veteran who had management experience, and was chafing under the restrictions of big-agency thinking. Also, Fleischer had known the Pound & Grain principals when they worked together in other agencies, and the group had maintained contact when they jumped ship.

Last summer, Fleischer went back to his digital roots and joined Pound & Grain, where he immediately drafted a new three-year business plan that would continue Pound & Grain’s growth, but leave its mission unchanged. The agency still aims to deliver highly specialized, envelope-pushing work to a select group of clients that “get it.”

Lessons

• Conquer your fear. Leaving a safe job is scary, but entrepreneurship can be rewarding.

• Find your focus. There’s no room in the modern world for generalists. Specialize.

• Bring in a pro to manage growth. Fleischer joined the company when it was at an inflection point and needed an expert overseer to keep the momentum – and core values – going.