Curiosity found a way to rebrand itself and release interesting creative during the pandemic while winning 10 new clients and maintaining all of its employees.

See all of Ad Age's 2021 Small Agency Award winners here.

In a bold move, the agency staked its commission after winning creative duties for Native’s first big awareness campaign. The agency convinced the Procter & Gamble brand to let the agency not only handle creative but media and strategy as well as part of an integrated approach. During the course of the “No is Our Woah” campaign, Native accounted for 40% of all deodorant sold at Target, and a 5.4% increase in brand lift across core demographics.

The agency also helped Bush's Beans’ lovable canine spokesman, Duke Bush, become an influencer, attracting a younger audience. Under the Instagram handle @itsdukebush, the bean-loving dog generated 200 million earned impressions and more than 17,000 Instagram followers–65% of them under the age of 35. 

Internally the agency dove deeper into its Curiosity philosophy and revamped its hiring practices, onboarding process strategic workshops and logo. Some new offerings from the agency include its “Curious Question” session, for new clients that is “part therapy, part gamification,” a TikTok pilot program, PR, influencer services and an in-house production studio designed to offer clients video, animation, and motion graphics content at a third of the cost and timeframe of a traditional production source. It also created “Fraction,” a practice designed to serve as a test and learn creative and media resource for new businesses with tight budgets that brought in a new revenue stream.

To help its clients navigate the pandemic, Curiosity released an eight-week COVID-19 thought leadership series. To aid its community, the Cincinnati-based agency began the “Save Cincy Small” initiative to promote and support small businesses. 

See all of Ad Age's 2021 Small Agency Award winners here.