The Message is the Medium

It may not have seemed like a good idea at the time. Graphic designer Stefan Hartung and branding strategist Mary Kemp started their own agency at the beginning of 2001—just as the advertising industry was deflating along with the economy.

But in retrospect, their timing was nearly perfect. The marketplace has been changing, and small, nimble boutiques are becoming attractive to clients after an era dominated by “integrative marketing” entities—the massive multidisciplinary operations built by global giants like New York–based Omnicom and France-based Publicis.

“When all the marketing budgets got slashed, there was a perception [among clients], ‘Well, I can’t afford the huge agency, but I can afford the smaller one,’” Kemp says. Smaller, more specialized agencies like HartungKemp aren’t knocking off the giants, but they’re providing branding and design services with a less bureaucratic, more intimate touch, particularly for specific brands or short-term projects.

“Design is starting to become in the forefront, and is more the darling of corporations, and companies are bringing in various types of design agencies to help restructure businesses, to help meet the changing needs of consumers,” Kemp says. It’s that unity of design and marketing strategy that brought Kemp and Hartung together. Hartung believes that design has become “almost a pillar of a business.”

“That has been happening in Europe for 20, 30 years,” says Hartung, a native of Germany. “IKEA is the best example: Great design can drive a business.” In the U.S., he adds, this “European” sensibility has been best embodied by Apple and, increasingly, Target (a HartungKemp client).

“Ad design can drive [business] as well,” Hartung says. “Because it’s not about saying, ‘Ooh, we’re the best! Ooh, we give away all this money to everybody.’ It’s about how you can say that subtly. If you boast about it, you fall off the train. Nobody wants to listen to that. You can show it in a visually interesting way, or you have other people tell that story. Then it’s believable.”

This summer, the agency won a major piece of business—working on a new line of products for Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Nutritionals unit (whose products include Splenda and Lactaid milk). According to Kemp, the agency will be building a new McNeil brand’s “identity, tone, and personality.”

HartungKemp’s work isn’t all in the for-profit sector. It has consciously sought out projects for nonprofit entities and philanthropic events since its inception. In the past six months, the agency has increasingly won corporate projects emphasizing client “social responsibility.”

For HartungKemp, this work has become something of a specialty, as clients discover that social consciousness is perhaps as important to a growing number of consumers (particularly younger ones) as good ad and product design. Says Hartung, “The consumer wants to find out, ‘Are you guys green? Are you guys giving back to the community?’”