merit
2009
Boston
Creative Branding + Talent Placement
A core team of seven plus a curated community of freelance talent.
Misfit
In the indie agency model “debate,” HATCH chose our side 16 years ago—long before there was such a debate. Since our founding, we’ve turned to top-notch freelancers we know and trust to purpose-build teams for each client assignment. We’re fully transparent about making freelance talent part of our model, and we build real, non-transactional relationships with our freelance community. In 2024, we added our first fulltime Creative Operations Manager with the goal of creating the most positive, supportive freelancer experience around. We’re hosting our first Freelance Mixer at a wine-and-tapas joint this fall to show our freelance fam our appreciation and help them build their own networks.
But that’s not even our biggest swerve away from the norm when it comes to independent talent: We also place them directly with clients, in both full-time and contract roles. Because we get that marketers don’t always need an agency—sometimes they just need an awesome human or two to add to their team, whether for a big internal project or for the long haul. Offering our clients a customizable combo of creative capabilities and expertly sourced talent, all from one partner, is what makes us “not like the others.”
There are a couple. First, for HATCH being an independent agency goes hand-in-hand with being a woman-owned and women-led agency. According to Own It, of the 22,000 advertising agencies in North America, less than 1% are owned by women or nonbinary people. We wish it didn’t make us a “misfit” to be a woman-owned agency but, as things currently stand, we are an incredibly rare breed.
Which brings us to the second part: Being independent means we can work to change that. The HATCH team is passionate about building onramps into the creative economy for a diverse new generation who will become the agency leaders of tomorrow. We partner with not-for-profit organizations like the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and RAW Art Works to help make that happen. That support happens in a range of different ways, from pro-bono branding and advertising projects, to event sponsorships, to our CEO & Founder Jennifer Harrington serving on their boards.
Independence means HATCH has been free to build and iterate on the agency model that works best for us and our clients over our 16 years in business. We are huge believers in the power of creative talent—but we also know from personal experience at holding company agencies that accessing that creative talent can be much harder than it should be for clients. At HATCH, we’re focused on removing the roadblocks so that great creative talent can do great work for brands—whether as part of an agency project team or directly with the client as a freelancer or full-time employee.
Most recently, we’re proud that our independence and our approach have allowed us to:
Create a breakthrough national TV campaign to launch fintech pioneer Quicken’s refreshed brand.
Partner with Peabody Essex Museum on an effective and multi-award-winning brand campaign, Escape the Algorithm.
Make the world’s first marketing-slash-cooking show, Eat In or Dine Out, where rockstar marketing leaders cook with our CEO in her kitchen.
HATCH was never supposed to be an agency. Which, now that we think of it, explains a lot about the type of agency HATCH has become.
In 2009, after 15 years in the advertising industry, Jennifer Harrington made the decision to go out on her own as a consultant. Jen had seen the positive impact agencies could make for brands — but also kept hearing the same gripes from marketers about what was lacking in their agency engagements.
Jen set up a series of meetings with potential clients. Before the first of these sit-downs, she got a piece of advice that changed everything: “You can’t show up as Jennifer Harrington, Consultant. For them to take you seriously, you need to be an agency.” Jen thought about it, briefly. Why couldn’t she be an agency? Why couldn’t she BUILD the type of agency she wanted to work at? In short order, a name was brainstormed, business cards were rush-printed, and Jennifer Harrington didn’t show up to that meeting; HATCH did.
Perhaps because Jen never set out to start an agency, the rules of how things are done elsewhere didn’t apply as the HATCH team grew and client partnerships flourished. We still pride ourselves on removing the barriers that have traditionally stood between brands and their agencies. Our independence has allowed us to do that for 16 years, and we’re proud to be a part of the indie community.
Like the agency business as a whole, HATCH has felt the squeeze of brands’ tightening marketing budgets. But even without big budgets to commit to projects, clients expect to make impactful, effective work — and need top-notch, specialized creative talent to help them do it. They could hire independent talent directly, but few marketing teams have the time, the relationships, or the ability to evaluate creative skills they need to find and hire the best freelancers.
Making talent placement part of HATCH’s agency offering is our answer. Launched in 2022, it is a flexible talent resource that gives our clients — even small brands — access to a curated community of award-winning national creatives that used to only be available at big-name agencies. Clients can access these freelancers as part of a custom-built project team or they can hire them for their in-house team, whether temporarily or for the long haul.
Powering the creative matchmaking is Dorothy Urlich, HATCH’s President, Talent. A former leader of both advertising and in-house agencies, Dorothy leverages her decades of experience working with and vetting creatives and an enviable national network to find the person who will thrive in solving each client’s challenge.
Nearly every HATCH client has tapped into our talent placement resource to achieve a huge range of goals, including:
Quicken to concept and produce a category-leading national TV spot.
MountainOne to partner with an award-winning illustrator on a children’s book.
Peabody Essex Museum to develop a new brand platform and advertising campaign.
As an agency team, we have plenty of experience on the other side(s) before coming to an independent agency like HATCH. Collectively, we’ve worked at a range of holding company agencies and in-house for brands. And collectively, we’ve done the best work of our careers at an independent agency and we’re inspired week after week by the work we see being made by our fellow indies. We are confident that the future of independent agencies is bright because the present is pretty darn bright, too.
We believe the continued rise of independent agencies will be powered by the ongoing evolution of the creative talent ecosystem. There are so many experienced, specialized, incredibly talented people out there freelancing. And independent agencies, including HATCH, are leading the way when it comes to building innovative, flexible, transparent models that give brands access to that independent talent along with a core agency team they know and trust—while providing freelancers with not only work but opportunities to tap into a new kind of work culture and community.
