Guesthouse

2024

Atlanta GA, Chapel Hill NC

Advertising & Production

3 full time, 5 part time, and dozens of Guests

Underdog

The best way to be a better agency is to do the opposite of everything agencies have done our whole careers. So we break every rule we can can think of. 

The main one is talking. Agencies love to talk about themselves. So we listen and let the clients talk. It's an amazing power, and we've never seen it happen at another agency, even once. Clients dig it!

We also care so much about the work like we always have, but now instead of having a committee chip away at it before the client ever sees it, we just work on it with the brand team, and then shoot it ourselves with Wes, who's been a commercial director for 7 years. Being a hybrid agency & production company means the people coming up with the work are the ones bringing it to life, no handoffs to a director who doesn't care about what the brand is trying to do. 

This isn't a rule, but we've found that doing things this way, we seem to attract only super nice clients we enjoy spending time with. It's a jerkless situation so far. 

We're called Guesthouse for two reasons. The first is, we don't think of your brand's in-house team as the enemy to be defeated. Instead, we treat them as partners, and we come in as Guests on your team to take on the stuff you need help with. Guesthouse is in-house, with extra nice sheets. 

We also bring in our network of talented Guest creatives as needed. Whether it's producers, designers, PMs, or an entire film crew, we scale up and down, meaning we can stay nimble and flexible without rebuilding the structure of a slow-moving, constantly-laying-everyone-off, traditional agency. It's us, plus people we love, teaming up to make fun stuff. 

We also love teaching creativity. So instead of hoarding its "secrets", we offer creative training and workshops to teach tricks that help anyone get to great ideas quickly. We do workshops for big brands, and 1:1 training with early-career creatives to give them the hands-on help that creative directors just don't have time to do anymore. 

We've won projects and AOR status with amazing clients, including Every Man Jack, SAS, Flexcar, Magic Spoon, Citizens Trust Bank, GreyStone Power, Soccer.com, Atlanta Vibe, Ponysaurus Brewing, Pinehurst Southern Pines & Aberdeen Tourism, and Raleigh Denim Workshop. In all of these cases, the traditional agency model was a huge turnoff, and the idea of working collaboratively led to really fun partnerships and work.

In our first year we won 8 Addys for different brands. We got great press for the work. We hosted 3 training workshops. And most satisfyingly, we stole a big account from a holding company agency whose comical greed ruined an agency we used to work at. 

At a previous non-independent agency, we won a big auto account. The brand had finished a year of research to get to a nice positioning and sell it in to the board. It was smart and easy to concept from. But since the agency had to pay for its strategy investment, they told the client they needed to do another round of expensive research, and charged them for a not-better new strategy. And were immediately fired. 

That's when we decided to start Guesthouse. Step one was to get good at some things we'd need: Wes became a director, shooting work for brands like Five Guys, Blue Cross Blue Sheild, and Checkers & Rally's, and building an amazing production network. Mitch became a CCO to learn how agencies work and don't work. Jeff became a talented and non-cheesy new business person.

In January 2024 we had a chance to pitch and win our first client, Citizens Trust Bank. We officially launched Guesthouse, and we can't believe how much better this is for everyone involved.

Without all the agency layers to slow us down, we move a lot faster than most brands can. We've learned to be patient. It actually helps us take on more clients and projects, without diluting the quality of work.

Independence is the only path that makes sense for good creative work. Our goal is to help brands find a simpler way to great creative. And to work with all the nice talented folks who will be independent creatives as the big agency model continues to become a strange, old-fashioned memory.