When William Esparza and Kelli Robertson left their roles at R/GA in 2019 to establish their own creative agency, they chose the name Hyphenated to reflect the agency’s aim of bridging the gap between brands and the multicultural audiences whose spending power continues to climb in today’s “fiercely hyphenated world.” That goal has been the line connecting the agency’s creative campaigns and brand identity refreshes in the past year for clients such as Nike Diamond (a Nike sub-brand focused on baseball and softball) and Dreyer’s and Edy’s ice cream. 

Hyphenated has rapidly expanded since a pandemic-induced business slump that led the agency to kick off 2021 with just two clients and a projected revenue of $250,000. It ended that year with newly secured partnerships with the Nike Diamond and Nike Skateboarding (aka Nike SB) sub-brands and the above-named ice cream brands. And the agency is on track to reach $10 million in revenue by the end of 2024, nearly doubling its $5.6 million revenue in 2023. 

One of Nike’s assignments for Hyphenated was to reinvent “diamond sports,” defined as softball and baseball, for youths over a multiyear campaign. Hyphenated last year developed an entirely new “Doin Damage” brand platform and bold design system for Nike Diamond focused on recruiting more Black and brown kids, teens and young girls to join baseball or softball teams.

The effort drove a 7% nationwide boost in youth participation in baseball and softball, including Little League. It also spurred an 11% increase in youth viewership of Major League Baseball, according to Hyphenated.

Hyphenated’s work for Nike in 2023 also included the creation of a social media series focused on highlighting the unique ways that diverse groups of kids and teens across the country play baseball or softball “on the streets, with a stick, wearing drip,” the agency said. That series increased the following of the @nikediamond social channels by 17%, with much of that growth stemming from women and young baseball fans. 

Erik Wade, Nike’s senior brand director of field sports, called Hyphenated’s refresh of the Nike Diamond brand the “biggest win of the year.”

Hyphenated also contemporized Dreyer’s by reinforcing the brand’s optimism and inventiveness with a new “Remixing since forever” brand platform designed to appeal to a younger, multicultural audience. That refresh translated directly to Dreyer’s sales—the ice cream brand “experienced its fastest growth rate in years” in 2023, according to the agency.