Agency’s Leaders Bring Authenticity to Their Target Market
Creative Digital Agency grows fast with an audience-first approach to its market niche
San Francisco entrepreneur Jin Kim launched Creative Digital Agency (CDA) in 2017, after leading the services team at a mobile marketing firm.
Starting his agency in the hyper-competitive San Francisco Bay Area, Kim opted to rely on the hands-on operational knowledge he and his founding team brought to the startup, rather than hire veteran business managers to steer the launch, and he says it’s the best move he could have made. Instead of spending big bucks to bring high-level executives on board, CDA was built by people who understood how to do the actual work: running ad campaigns, producing videos, and working with clients day to day.
By 2020, CDA’s year-over-year revenue had increased by more than five times.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
Kim, who immigrated to the United States from South Korea at age 6, says CDA has always prioritized understanding the culture of its target market of 24- to 40-year-olds better than the competition. The agency has continued to hire staff with an instinctive understanding of how to engage a modern and trend-setting demographic.
That authentic audience connection produced success early on. In 2017, Kim and his team’s understanding of young pet owners helped Merck Pharmaceuticals launch a wildly effective consumer incentives program for its Bravecto line of flea and tick medications, which quickly scaled across six countries in the U.S. and South America. The campaign boosted sales for each participating retailer by an average of $28,000 per year and the product sold out in Brazil. “It was the campaign that put us on the radar,” Kim says.
Industry awards and recognition followed, including wins from Mobile Marketing Magazine’s EMMA Awards, the Mobile Marketing Association Global Business Impact Index, and a nomination for the Digiday Awards later that year.
With an influx of new marquee clients including the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board and Airbnb, the agency expanded and diversified, opening additional offices and production sites in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Seoul, Korea.
QUICK AND ADAPTABLE
Being independent and nimble enables CDA to get campaigns to market sooner than its larger competitors. The team produced a Coca-Cola ad for the 2018 Winter Olympics in just a few days. “We got the call Saturday morning to put a full production together and started shooting in Seoul on Monday morning,” Kim says.
By staying true to its core “audience-first” philosophy, CDA has been able to quickly identify new opportunities for brands when targeting modern consumers, executing successful campaigns that combine traditional and digital engagement.