1
2023
New York City
We are a social-first media and creative agency, focused on delivering best-in-class social solutions for brands with high speed and high care.
30 active team members (11 are full-time, including founders)
Underdog
Two years ago, Rachel Brandt and Madeline Meade had a radical idea: what if an agency could turn a brief into a launch-ready campaign in days instead of weeks, all without compromising creative excellence? Corner Table Creative was built around the premise that if brands want to compete on social, they need to build memorable connections with breakthrough creative at the speed of culture.
Ditching traditional silos, they piloted a hybrid model where multi-skilled, social-first creatives work directly with clients from brief to launch. For example, when Sweetgreen (their first client) needed to respond to a trending cultural moment, the same person who developed the strategic insight also directed the content and managed the production. No delays. No compromises. No lost creative intent in translation. The results speak for themselves, and client referrals came quickly. The agency is now Sweetgreen’s AOR, and has quickly expanded to Fortune 500 companies such as Marriott International, NBC Universal, and Yahoo, as well as disruptor favorites such as ResortPass, Kindred, and Allbirds (not to mention their latest client win, Starbucks).
Corner Table Creative’s name reflects a hospitality-inspired approach. They believe the corner table is the best seat in the house—one primed for meaningful connections. Their ethos is rooted in the belief that to create something truly memorable, people need to feel taken care of—whether that’s their teams, their clients, or, most importantly, their audiences.
In contrast to large holding companies, where scale and efficiency often take precedence over service and experience, being an indie agency allows the Corner Table team to deliver on this ethos, nurturing deep relationships with every brand on their roster and adapting to the needs of their audiences. A key part of this approach is the agency’s Content Drops—batches of content creation guided by what’s performing, what’s shaping culture, and what aligns with a client’s business priorities. Each drop is set up as a self-improving cycle, generating better results and learnings with every round. This speed and structure allow them to deliver content at faster speeds—often in days, versus the usual weeks or months at traditional agencies.
They are also on a mission to empower the next generation of female creatives. Proudly among the 1% of female-owned agencies (Women’s Business Enterprise National Council), and with a team that is 76% female, this mission permeates their daily processes.
Instead of daily timesheets (stale and lame), the team submits daily brag sheets (fun and cool). Research shows that women are more likely to undersell their accomplishments, so this practice is just as much about retraining as it is about reporting. It’s a tangible way to prepare employees for future leadership positions and build resumes in real time. The agency has also found that providing clients with a list of contributions—the “brags”—is far more meaningful than delivering a lump sum of hours.
Corner Table Creative has been quick to promote high performers and instituted a profit-sharing model at the end of their first year, evenly distributing profits among the team, all of whom work collaboratively and take pride in being an indie.
In an industry leaning more and more towards project-based work, nearly 80% of Corner Table Creative clients are on retainer–proof that their model delivers lasting value for brands like TALEA Beer Co.
Before Corner Table: Struggling to consistently connect with their audience in a male-dominated beer culture, TALEA—a smaller, local brand and the first female-founded brewery in NYC—lacked the budget to make a large investment in agency support.
With Corner Table: The agency reimagined its scope structure and processes to partner with TALEA at a lower rate. Instead of large monthly decks and formal workflows, they introduced weekly TALEA Tuesdays, where the team would ideate, shoot, and create content in real time. To guide the work, they developed a strategy to redefine what it means to be a “beer girl,” producing and delivering assets weekly that allowed female audiences to see themselves both in the content and, more importantly, in TALEA’s taprooms.
Impact: “I'm almost hesitant to write this because I don't want to share CTC. Within weeks of working with CTC, it felt like they were a part of our in-house marketing team. They immediately understood our brand and hit the ground running with fun, engaging content that we were never quite able to create on our own. Their creative vision and execution continue to impress us week after week. With a myriad of marketing tools and agencies to choose from, partnering with CTC was easily one of the best decisions we've made.” – LeAnn Darland, Co-Founder at TALEA Beer Co.
Brandt and Meade connected over a shared commitment to caring deeply—for the work they create and the relationships they build. By chance—but likely sparked by watching The Bear—the co-founders found themselves reading Unreasonable Hospitality by Danny Meyer at the same time, just as conversations about starting an agency began. What seemed like a coincidence quickly became the foundation for their company.
Both digital natives with deep social expertise, they saw an opportunity to reimagine agency life—stripped of red tape and centered on meaningful connections. Their entire approach grew from one deceptively simple idea: what if an agency actually made people feel taken care of—truly seen, heard, and valued? That principle now guides how they show up for their employees, their clients, and their clients’ audiences.
Starting an agency without a logo, website, or even consistent presentation templates wasn’t just unconventional—it felt downright wrong to the two co-founders, both of whom care deeply about details. Every client meeting was a test: would brands trust an agency that didn’t look like one? With no established reputation to lean on (and, yes, still no logo), they knew their only chance at survival was to prove themselves from the ground up.
They poured their energy into building genuine relationships—showing up, delivering great work, and making people feel taken care of. Those relationships quickly turned into referrals, with 75% of revenue growth driven by existing clients expanding partnerships. That momentum fueled their rise, scaling into a multi-million-dollar agency within just the first year.
Brandt and Meade see the future of the industry being shaped by the rise of social AORs. As brands shift their center of gravity toward social—where their audiences already are—they need partners who can move quickly, adapt in real time, and create work that feels native to each platform. Independent agencies are uniquely positioned to deliver on this with the speed, agility, and creativity that big holding companies can’t match. Their goal is to demonstrate what’s possible when a social-first independent agency operates as a true extension of a client team—setting the pace for how social AORs will define the next era of partnerships.
