Lunchtime at Artisan Media Group is family style, says Victor Leon, VP of accounts and operations at the Miami-based full-service agency, which has expertise in social, digital, email and direct-response marketing. Its 18 employees order meals daily and the team eats around a big conference table. “That’s camaraderie,” Leon says.

The founders wanted to build a company that was different from other ad agencies, Leon says. To do that, the shop puts the focus of the company on its employees, who set the direction of the agency and its clients. “We’re making sure employees are the ones running the company,” Leon says. That's one of the reasons Artisan was chosen as first among companies with up to 200 employees in Ad Age Best Places to Work 2020.

Artisan, founded in 2006, started with a focus on marketing in the health care sector, but has since branched out to include sports, entertainment, consumer products, education and other fields.

Autumn Miller, an associate creative director, joined Artisan in the second half of last year. “When you’re coming into an agency and working with an existing client,” Miller says, “it’s kind of rare to have immediate trust and support.”

But that’s how Artisan made her feel working with one of its longtime clients.

“We’re not structured like a traditional agency,” Leon says. At Artisan, an account manager can come up with creative ideas, for instance, since no one is stuck in a single role.

Artisan—whose staff is nearly all Hispanic—works on social media marketing for Univision as well as with the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee for this year’s Big Game. Leon says one of the ways the shop tries to stand out is by enforcing strict work-life boundaries. “You can count on one hand the amount times anyone had to stay past 6:30 here,” Leon says.