(and Ariana grande seems to agree)
The theory is simple. Busy, overwhelmed clients looking for marketing, advertising, and organizational transformation help have no time to coordinate the efforts of multiple small agencies, and omnichannel communications only work when messaging and strategy are tightly aligned. But large international holding companies can be slow moving and inflexible in cost. What today’s clients need is a partner big enough to offer sophisticated integrated services, and small enough to be agile. Yes. And.
Does it work? Apparently so.
Prove me wrong
We worked very hard in 2023 to integrate our service offerings. We’ve restructured and removed barriers between disciplines. We focused on what our clients were trying to accomplish, rather than what we wanted them to buy. What resulted was the best year yet for Yes&.
We welcomed many outstanding new clients, such as Medidata, Summit Ridge Energy, the UVA Darden School of Business, CTIA, Qualys, and the U.S. State Department. Our relationships with existing clients such as Akima, the Smithsonian Institution, PCORI, Transurban, Sentara, and the U.S. Mint broadened and deepened.
Our growth was recognized as the Washington Business Journal named us #2 Advertising Agency and #9 Fastest Growing privately held company in Greater D.C. Meanwhile, Ad Age named us #22 Fastest Growing agency internationally and #1 in the Southeast U.S.
.png?width=220&height=220&name=MicrosoftTeams-image%20(163).png)
But we didn’t sacrifice quality for growth. Yes& was recognized with twenty awards for creative excellence including ADDY, Best Brand, Educational Advertising, Communicator, American Business, Hermes, and Graphis awards.
One internal statistic tells it all to us at Yes&: We have 25 clients that use us for four or more different services, and together they account for 66.5% of our gross margin. That is, many of our clients are using packages that combine strategy, events, media, PR, design, content, or digital and getting the benefit of coordination and streamlined account management.
What They Said
We pay a lot of attention when our clients give us feedback on these things. While we enjoy messages of thanks (and appreciate the occasional opportunity to improve) we especially note comments like these:
“Congratulations and thank you for a very successful year. You are always thinking about the next thing we can do...thinking ahead.”
“Y'all were great partners and truly helped us package ourselves in a way that resonates with prospective students.”
“You all are way more than just an agency - you are truly our partners and we feel the connection.”
“Yes& is far and away the best collaborator for executing successful large-scale programs and events. Their processes are thorough, and their PEOPLE are consistently incredible.”
fast Forward
We consider it auspicious that Ariana Grande borrowed our agency name for her first release of 2024. We, however, were already looking forward to another year of Yes&.
While we continue to study our clients’ challenges, we want to take our integration of services up another notch. We’ll be deepening our newer organizational development, inclusive design, and business strategy capabilities so we can say “yes, and” when our clients need them.
If you would like to experience our integrated approach for your own organization, let’s chat. We’re eager to learn more about your challenges, and show you what “&” can do for you.
