20 Years of Creative, Strategy, Heart

This month, we are kicking off Britton’s 20th year of supporting our clients and their consumers, a psychographic group we call the New American Middle, with strategy-based marketing and emotive storytelling that speaks directly to the values they hold dear.

Over the next 12 months we are going to dive into how we built success for our clients over the last two decades, how the marketing industry—and Britton’s own approach to marketing—has evolved, and how we will approach the next 20 years with fresh eyes.

But first a little history. Twenty years ago, Jeff Britton was running a commercial furniture consulting firm, and Sue Britton was directing marketing at Vera Bradley. After 10 years, they were both ready for a new challenge. Commercial seating was going through many changes, and Sue had worked with Vera Bradley to help it grow from a small $10 million gift industry company to a popular consumer brand at almost $400 million. She missed the small creative entrepreneurial environment. They went on a rare vacation and, while there, zeroed in on what they were passionate about and how they might pivot to something new.

They came home, wrapped up their other roles, and started building what would become Britton Marketing & Design Group. Jeff focused on marketing, sales, and operations; Sue on creative copy and design. They brought in Lori Britton (their sister-in-law) to help with operations and Meghan Britton (their daughter and a recent college grad) for graphic design and production.

With only one prospective client on the day they opened, Sue wondered how foolish this rash decision might be. But voilà! Her loyal and supportive friends at Vera Bradley turned to the new agency, trusting in Sue’s creativity and branding expertise. It began with a cookbook, and from there our relationship grew until we were working together on four big catalogs and over 1,300 accompanying projects annually. Other gift industry companies followed, and the colorful, creative, and emotionally resonant work we produced has come to define Britton’s signature branding and marketing reputation to this day.

We sat down with co-founders Jeff and Sue Britton to look back on two decades of creativity, growth, and grit, and to hear what’s next.

Q: Who did you want to work with? What did you want Britton to be?

Sue: I wanted to connect with the things that really moved people and the beauty of life’s simple moments. So that naturally became our goal: create work that people's hearts responded to, and where brands and consumers could communicate to each other in a special way. All the while fostering an environment at Britton where creative people could enjoy working (and working together) so great design had a better opportunity to happen.

Q: Did you always hope to work with national brands? How has a Fort Wayne–based agency like Britton managed to connect so universally?

Sue: I love Fort Wayne, but the companies we’ve served have not been local, for the most part. An important distinction for us has been our experience with marketing to women, much of which I was able to bring from my time at Vera Bradley. We also saw that high-level creative branding and marketing was something many lifestyle companies struggled to do. This presented a really fun opportunity to work with companies where branding could tell an authentic story, one which consumers could be immediately moved by or attracted to, and where we could help to build a sort of “brand love,” for lack of a better description.

Peter Millar is a great example. The way they originally shot photography was to go to a great location but then sort of wing it. They wanted to see how we could help them with that. We loved being able to apply our branding and photography experience and imagine how those beautiful fabrics and clothes (that they’d work so hard to develop) could come to life. After a year, the CEO called us and said, “We didn’t do anything else but this new photography, and we’ve grown 50%. We really credit you with that.” Wow! Music to our ears! We have experienced, over and over again, that marketing-driven, emotional branding can change a company overnight. Highly nuanced creative, informed by data, “fires on all cylinders,” as we often say.

Jeff: We were in the middle of product categories served by national companies who understood there was a difference in context that they couldn’t really replicate from the East or West Coast. Those were echo chambers where they just talked to themselves. We didn’t want a palm tree in every picture; we’d rather have a maple tree or something that felt a bit more universal. 

So, 20 years ago, Jeff and Sue left on a vacation feeling like they wanted to make a change. Now, 20 years later, we can see how that change impacted their lives, the lives of Britton team members past and present, and the many brands we’ve worked with.

As Britton enters its 20th year, the legacy Jeff and Sue built—the culture, the craft, the commitment to the New American Middle—is very much alive. Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about the New American Middle filter, new research, more stories, and a deeper look at what the next 20 years holds. Keep watching here and on our social channels!