Here’s a question we’ve been hearing more often lately, and it’s a fair one. If AI can generate images, write copy, and speed up creative production, shouldn’t marketing be getting cheaper? We’ve asked ourselves the same thing. We’ve spent much of this year experimenting with AI, testing its capabilities, and looking for ways to make our work more efficient. We’ve found some genuinely exciting opportunities, but we’ve also learned that the cost savings being promised by the AI industry don’t always translate into the real world, especially when you’re producing creative work for clients with real products, real customers, and high expectations.

At the same time, the cost of doing business has increased in the US. The equipment, production resources, and the technology we all rely on are more expensive. For companies like Britton, we’re also committed to investing in the talented people who make the work possible. With marketing costs rising, we’re explaining what’s behind pricing decisions, what we’re learning about AI, and how we’re working to make every marketing dollar count.

The Cost of Doing Good Work Has Gone Up

Like many of our clients, we’ve spent the past few years watching expenses climb. Some increases are obvious, while others are easier to overlook until it’s time to replace equipment, renew a service, or plan a production. Take something as simple as getting our team and equipment to a photo shoot. Rising fuel costs affect transportation, shipping, and the vendors we work with. When we plan an on-location shoot, those expenses are part of what it takes to get everyone, and everything, where they need to be.

Then there’s the equipment itself. Professional cameras, lighting, lenses, computers, and editing workstations are significant investments, and replacing them is getting more expensive. Whether a studio owns its gear or rents it (and many creatives now rent cameras, since it’s too costly to buy every time a new model drops), those costs ripple across the industry and into pricing. Tariffs have contributed to price increases on certain cameras, with some Canon models increasing by as much as $500. The computers we use are facing similar pressures. The growing demand for AI infrastructure has contributed to memory shortages, driving up the price of components used in everyday computers. Gartner projected a 17% increase in PC prices in 2026. There’s a certain irony in AI making the computers we need to use AI more expensive, but here we are.

Beyond equipment, there are software licenses, subscriptions, production expenses, and the everyday costs of keeping a creative business running. Each of these investments supports the work we deliver, even if clients never see them listed individually on an estimate. And that AI everyone assumes should be making marketing cheaper? It comes with a hard cost of its own, and it’s climbing. The cost of using AI software isn’t as fixed as people think. For example, while you can negotiate a cost per seat, there are also additional usage fees and token costs that factor into each program. These costs are all expected to continue to rise over the next few years.

Over time, those expenses add up, and companies across the industry are adjusting their pricing to reflect what it actually costs to produce the work.

Our Biggest Investment Is Still Our People

Britton, like many agencies, is at its heart a service business, which means much of what our clients pay for comes down to the knowledge, experience, and time of the people working on their projects. We want to keep paying our people fairly, retain talented creatives, give them the resources to do their best work, and continue building a team that our clients know and trust. That’s an investment we’re proud to make, even as the costs associated with employing and supporting a skilled team continue to increase.

When you work with an experienced marketing team, you’re getting years of creative and strategic knowledge applied to your business. You’re paying for the designer who notices that something feels off before a concept reaches the client, the strategist who understands how a creative decision affects your larger goals, and the production team that knows how to bring an idea to life. Yes, we and others in the industry may use AI from time to time, but our teams are still the humans leading the work and making sure the output is on par. You’re also benefiting from the relationships and familiarity that develop over time. There is true and honest value in having people who know your business, understand your customers, and can anticipate what you need. We believe those things are worth protecting, especially when budgets are tighter and every marketing dollar needs to work harder.

We Tested AI Against Traditional Production

We’ve been excited about the potential of AI, particularly when it comes to creative production. Naturally, we wanted to know whether it could help us deliver the same quality of work at a lower cost. We’ll admit we went in as skeptics, ready to test our instincts. So, we put it to the test with the permission of one of our clients. Our team compared an AI-assisted creative production process with a traditional photo shoot to see where we could realistically save time and money.

The results were surprising to our clients. The overall savings were marginal. We spent less time on set, which was encouraging, but much of that saved time shifted into other parts of the process. Our team spent additional hours directing the software, refining the imagery, correcting details, and getting the results to a standard we felt comfortable putting in front of a client. The technology certainly changed how we worked, but it didn’t eliminate the need for experienced creatives to guide the process.

We also ran into some interesting creative limitations. AI-generated imagery can look impressive at first glance, but realistic lighting, perspective, product details, and the natural imperfections that make a space feel lived in are surprisingly difficult to get right. Even small details like grout lines can end up noticeably off. In some cases, the results felt a little too perfect, giving the imagery an artificial quality that made it harder to create the emotional connection we wanted.

We’ve also made a commitment to accurately represent the products and materials our clients sell. If we’re showing a particular piece of furniture, finish, or product, we need customers to see something they can actually buy. AI can invent convincing details that don’t exist in the real world, which means our team must be especially careful when reviewing the results. We also incur additional legal costs to ensure that both Britton and our clients are protected against potential future claims.

Those safeguards and corrections require time, expertise, and a trained creative eye. That’s been one of our biggest lessons from testing AI this year. AI can help us work faster in certain areas, but the time saved isn’t always equal to the time or money saved on an entire project. We’re also adding new technology and software costs to our operations, so any efficiencies need to be weighed against those investments. In some cases, AI may be a great solution. In others, a traditional production process may still be more efficient, more accurate, or better suited to the creative idea. We’re continuing to experiment because we want to find those opportunities, but we also want to be realistic with our clients about what the technology can deliver today.

The Cost of Reaching Your Customers Is Changing Too

There’s another part of the marketing budget worth talking about, and that’s what it costs to reach people. Advertising platforms operate in competitive marketplaces, where the amount you pay to reach a particular audience can change based on advertiser demand, competition, placement availability, and platform changes. AI is playing a growing role in how those platforms optimize campaigns and place bids, but automated bidding doesn’t eliminate the cost of advertising. Even with increasingly sophisticated tools, advertisers are still competing for the attention of the same customers. According to LocaliQ’s 2026 benchmark report, the average cost per click on search ads has climbed to $5.42, up from $2.32 in 2016. Meta’s own Q3 2026 results showed the average price per ad in the US and Canada is up 23% from a year earlier.

For clients, this means a media budget that worked well last year may produce different results this year. Even when we’re improving the efficiency of our creative production, that doesn’t necessarily reduce what platforms charge to deliver a campaign. It makes thoughtful planning more important than ever. We need to keep evaluating where the money goes, how campaigns perform, and whether the investment is producing meaningful results. Sometimes the smartest recommendation is to spend more. Other times, it’s to change the strategy, narrow the audience, or rethink where the money is going altogether. Our responsibility as an agency is to help clients make those decisions with confidence.

What This Means for Our Clients

Many of our clients are navigating the same economic pressures we are, and we don’t take that lightly. That’s one reason we’re investing so much time in understanding new technology. We’re looking for opportunities to improve our processes, reduce unnecessary costs, and make each marketing investment go further. We want AI to make our work better and more efficient, and when it creates meaningful savings, we want our clients to benefit from them. We’re just not interested in promising dramatic reductions that our own testing hasn’t supported.

We’re also continuing to ask ourselves the same questions we encourage our clients to ask. Where are we spending money? What’s creating value? Which investments help us deliver better work, and where can we make a smarter choice? Marketing has always required a balance between investment and return, and that conversation feels especially important right now. We want our clients to understand where their money is going and feel confident that we’re making thoughtful decisions on their behalf.

After 20 years in business, we’ve learned that the tools we use will keep changing. The economics of our industry will change too. What we want to preserve is the quality of our work, the relationships we’ve built, and the care our team brings to every project. We can’t promise that marketing will cost what it did a few years ago, but we can promise to keep looking for better ways to work, to be thoughtful about what we recommend, and to be honest about what it takes to deliver great results.

If you’re reconsidering your marketing budget or wondering where AI could make a meaningful difference, we’d be happy to work through those questions with you. We’re asking many of the same things ourselves.

In 1997, Elton John, Hanson, and the Backstreet Boys ruled the airwaves alongside Jewel, Toni Braxton, En Vogue, and the Spice Girls, but radio ran on an unwritten rule: never play two women back-to-back. Executives believed it would send listeners to another station, and they even advised touring women against booking women as openers. Sarah McLachlan, one of the decade’s best-selling artists, set out to prove them wrong with Lilith Fair, a touring festival of women solo artists and women-led bands. In its first three years, artists like Fiona Apple, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, Sinéad O’Connor, and Missy Elliott took the stage, and the tour raised over $10 million for charity. Lilith Fair arrived alongside riot grrrl, the early-’90s feminist punk movement that gave women room for anger and spread through zines, art, and activism. Twenty-nine years later, Olivia Rodrigo picked up the torch with Daisy Chain Fields, a festival and fund for nonprofits advocating for women and girls. She called McLachlan first, and on stage she put it plainly: “Without Lilith Fair, there would be no Daisy Chain.”

During the inaugural 2026 Daisy Chain Fields festival, over 45,000 people filled the festival grounds in Irvine, California, and more than a dozen female artists performed across two stages. By the end of the night, the festival had raised $10 million for ten nonprofits, and when philanthropist Melinda French Gates joined Rodrigo on stage and matched the funds raised, the total came to $20 million.

Daisy Chain Fields is one of those special unicorns that approached things from a truly genuine place of integrity and respect. In doing so, something magical happened. For anyone who leads a brand, a team, or a movement — especially anyone who wants to reach women with integrity — we think this festival is worth studying closely.

Values-Driven Marketing

The conventional wisdom in live entertainment is to appeal to the broadest possible consumer, which usually means avoiding anything divisive or controversial. Rodrigo’s team chose differently, refusing to shrink from its stated mission:

“Daisy Chain Fields is a music festival founded on the belief that joy, community, and creativity can inspire meaningful change. Through partnerships and on-site resources, the festival seeks to ensure that girls and young people have access to information and support they may not otherwise know how to find, and real-life interactions with women and girls who are bright lights in our world.”

According to our research, the New American Middle consumer group is primarily motivated by values, with 75% of those surveyed believing that it is important for brands to take a stand. We also found that individuals belonging to the New American Middle tend to reject bigness, inauthenticity, and exclusion. They can sense a sales pitch instantly, and they expect brands to show, not tell.

Rodrigo’s commitment to the mission statement, her transparency, and her unapologetic advocacy supports this research. Tickets for the festival sold out in 30 minutes and attendance reached 45,000, proving that people show up and allocate funds towards causes they care about and can trust.

Research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University also shows why a mission-first event resonates. They found that women are more likely than men to donate to a cause because of their political or philosophical beliefs, more likely to volunteer or serve on a board, and more likely to spontaneously respond to a need. Earlier research also found that women at nearly every income level are more likely to give and to give more.

Line that up with the festival: a belief-driven mission, volunteer drives before the gates opened, a game that taught attendees about women’s history and nonprofit partners, beneficiaries focused on women and girls, a chain made of many small contributions. The event’s design met the audience’s motivations at every step. The organizers matched how many women decide, give, and belong, and women are not a niche audience: they are most of the market.

From the beginning, organizers began building the event as a benefit for a cause, with 100% of net proceeds going towards ten nonprofit organizations. In its mission statement, the festival described itself as founded on the belief that joy, community, and creativity can inspire meaningful change. Joy is not an escape from the serious work. It is what makes people willing to keep showing up for it.

The festival’s goals were also communicated clearly:

1. To provide opportunities for education, dialogue, and engagement around issues affecting women and girls in the United States and globally
2. To direct proceeds from the festival towards nonprofit organizations dedicated to the advancement and advocacy of women and girls.

Combined, the nonprofit beneficiaries cover much of a woman’s life as well as the systems around her: providing children with basic necessities like diapers and formula, birth, and reproductive health initiatives devoted to Black and Indigenous communities, support for survivors of gender-based violence, advocacy for worker’s rights and protections, and reproductive healthcare. For these organizations, a gift of this size means the ability to keep doing important work and plan proactively.

Rodrigo and organizers could have approached the festival differently by prioritizing performers who would bring in the most profit and promising the charitable donation to follow. But from the beginning, this women-led team knew their “why,” lead with integrity, and deliberately structured the festival to be impact first, not second.

Designed for Participation

Studies suggest that humans have a fundamental, biological, and psychological drive to belong to a group and form deep relationships. Organizers took this to heart and crafted an event strategy that would bring people together before the gates opened, throughout the event, and well after the final encore performance.

In the weeks before the festival, free tickets were raffled to fans who attended volunteer drives in Los Angeles, and online followers were encouraged to share their own charitable work with #DaisyChainReaction. This call to action furthered the festival’s reach and impact beyond just one day, as people were inspired to become active in their communities and foster new relationships.

Button pins were also a core part of the festival’s visual identity, from the website and marketing materials to the scenic design of the performance stages. In the festival’s Philanthropy Village, festivalgoers could collect a pin from each of the ten beneficiaries in order to redeem a completed set for a prize. Giving was gamified in a way that felt genuine, not cheap. Having a unifying visual identity also strengthened the psychological feeling of belonging to something greater. The experience of looking out into a sea of people, knowing every person wearing a button pin holds a shared belief that women and girls deserve to be uplifted — that is a powerful emotional memory that can guide how people move through the world and see themselves in it.

Beyond the collectable button pins, Rodrigo took inspiration from riot grrrl and worked with Daisy Chain Field’s artists to create the Daisy Chain Fields Zine which festivalgoers could take home. This 40-page piece of physical media, filled with powerful messages, education, and resources, was carried out from festival grounds and into the world, broadening the festival’s impact and making it even longer lasting.

Target Your Audience Authentically

Caroline Criado Perez’s book Invisible Women makes a case that applies beyond research, product design, and planning: when a default is built around one group’s experience, everyone else gets quietly overlooked, usually with no ill intent. This exists in marketing as well. In the effort to appeal to “everyone,” campaigns often land on a “safe,” neutral look that tends to smooth out the details that make an audience feel seen and understood.

That matters because women are roughly half of the U.S. population and a huge part of the market. Capital One research estimates women are directly or indirectly responsible for up to $18.2 trillion, or 85% of U.S. consumer spending. CivicScience puts women’s share of purchasing decisions at 70% to 80% and NIQ research adds that women’s buying is shaped by life stage, finances, health needs, and household structure, so “marketing to women” as one monolith misses the mark. Daisy Chain Fields avoided that faux pas by putting several generations and genres on one bill, with a message broad enough for all of them.

Rather than softening its femininity to win over the widest possible crowd, the festival leaned into it. The printed zine, Daisy Lane, partnerships like the Depop style bar and Etsy Creative Village, and the pin-collecting game all felt specifically designed for the audience attending the festival. A field of oversized daisies, a grove of glowing vintage lampshades, a dollhouse-inspired cafe, and a carousel turned a concert into a place people wanted to stay. Immersive design and creative spaces tell an audience that someone thought about them, and that’s the foundation of lasting loyalty.

Running a 45,000-person festival is a hard-skills problem: production, logistics, budgets, and safety. But what made Daisy Chain Fields feel like something people wanted to be part of came in large part from the soft skills: building strong interpersonal relationships, clear communication, and leadership built on trust.

The takeaway? Don’t be afraid to target your audience in a strong and authentic way. The loyalty and enthusiasm it earns will likely far outweigh whatever you worry you’re giving up by not going broad.

Relationship Building, Teamwork and Collaboration

That first phone call to a respected elder who had done it before. A lineup built on mutual respect across generations. A vendor village filled with local creators with shared values. Corporate partnerships that worked within and alongside the festival’s purpose rather than competing with it. Daisy Chain Fields was made possible through relationship building.

Many marketing efforts aimed at women talk to her from the outside. This event was built by women, for women, with women across the bill, the stage, and the beneficiary list. This builds trust and authority — a team that includes the audience can see what that audience wants, what it is tired of, and what it will notice and appreciate.

In marketing terms, these are not “nice-to-haves.” The implementation of these skills are why festivalgoers trusted the event (and its organizers) enough to invest in a $250 ticket, show up at volunteer drives beforehand, and donate additional funds to support Daisy Chain’s nonprofit partners.

Respect the Past While Building the Future

Daisy Chain Field’s lineup spanned genres and generations, from riot grrrl pioneers like Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, Alanis Morissette, and Stevie Nicks to newer stars like Chappell Roan, Doechii, and Mitski. A diverse lineup that speaks to several generations at once is rare, and it is the product of deliberate curation and thoughtful strategy, not coincidence.

For a young woman in the crowd, seeing women of every generation on stage, running the show, and being thanked for it is a more persuasive and lasting message than any marketing campaign. In her closing remarks, Rodrigo made sure to thank every artist who waived their fee, every sponsor who signed on to a brand-new festival, and every donor who helped reach the $10 million mark. Expressing genuine gratitude and respect is essential, making sure people know that their actions made a tangible, positive difference.

This aligns with our research, with 41% of the New American Middle ranking respect as the most important secondary value when considering personal preferences. Credibility is borrowed and then built upon. The strongest voices in any space are those who name who came before them, ask for their counsel, and invite them into the room.

Julia Boorstin’s research on successful women founders and executives also supports this. Of the 120 women she interviewed for her book When Women Lead, all said it was essential to acknowledge the contributions others made to their success. The elders at Daisy Chain Fields were not merely nostalgia acts — they were co-authors, and their presence told a multigenerational audience that this movement has roots and a future.

What Brands & Leaders Can Learn

1. Name Your lineage. Credit those who came before you, ask for their wisdom, and make room for them.
2. Lead with relationships. Soft skills are the infrastructure of trust, and trust is what audiences buy first.
3. Make values structural. Build them into who is paid, who is involved, where the money goes, and how the partners participate, not just into the copy.
4. Don’t flatten your message to please everyone. A clear stance builds a more loyal audience than a neutral one.
5. Design for participation. Give people something to build, collect, and contribute to. Invite people to become links in the greater chain.
6. Speak to the unspoken to. Broaden what is considered the “default” and explore how you can communicate with untapped or ignored markets.
7. Define success broadly. Sell-outs and attendance matter, and so does what the work leaves behind.

At Britton, we have been refining how brands speak to women for 20 years. Much of our work lives where values-driven marketing and marketing to women meet. After working for more than a decade with Vera Bradley, our first client, we became experts at helping brands market to this powerful audience. We have helped clients like Arhaus, Sherwin-Williams, Anderson Tuftex, and Pyrex identify their core values to have meaningful, authentic conversations with women.

The brands a woman rallies behind must understand what inspires her, what her values are and what motivates her to connect. Women largely want only what’s best for themselves and for the ones they love — they want a better world.

We are an agency that can envision this world. Better yet, we’re an agency that’s offering to help women build it. Our team is built of women, and the combined lived experience shapes how our team thinks, creates, and connects with other women through brand storytelling and research. As we see with Daisy Chain Fields, when women leaders prioritize values-driven work, the work reflects women’s lives and earns their trust.

The people behind a brand tend to know it better than anyone. They use the products, chat with customers, answer questions, and shape what makes it unique every single day. When it comes to promotion, they bring a personal perspective that can’t be manufactured.

That’s what makes employee-generated content (EGC) such a great way for brands to connect with their audiences. When employees step out from behind the scenes, people get to see the faces, personalities, and everyday moments that make a company what it is. Suddenly the brand isn’t just a logo or a storefront; it’s a group of real people you could imagine grabbing coffee with.

People are increasingly drawn to content that feels real rather than polished, and hearing from the folks who know a company best makes a brand feel more relatable and easier to trust. Employee social media is a chance to hand the mic to the people behind the products and let them help tell the story.

The Rise of EGC

Employees using social media during work or posting about their employer used to be a scary topic. Brands weren’t ready to have their story shared without knowing exactly what would be said. As people have become more skeptical of polished marketing, genuine recommendations from people with firsthand experience have become more valuable. Employees have that experience built in. The old rules are changing, and audiences are loving the new approach.

EGC is the natural next step after UGC (user-generated content) proved that authenticity outsells polish. Businesses spent years asking customers to post, but employees, the people who know the product best, were often left out of the conversation or actively discouraged from posting at all. That’s changing fast as consumers grow savvier about spotting sponsored content. The everyday, unscripted voice of an employee, filming from the sales floor, at the register, or backstage, has become one of the most trusted forms of content a brand can put out.

Brandon Nguyen at Coach is a great example of this shift. Brandon creates content around new bag launches, the products that are selling fast, and even answering comments from people who aren’t sure which bag is right for them. His clear knowledge of vintage Coach and new bags makes it easy to see that he knows every bag the brand has ever had, showing his followers that they can trust his expertise and opinion. Need a look-alike for a bag from 1994? He can find it! The trust he’s built with the Coach consumer has built trust in the business itself. That knowledge and genuine love for the product is impossible to replicate.

While EGC is often a free and organic way to reach new audiences, companies can also reward employees for the content and sales they drive through employee affiliate programs.

Company Affiliate Programs

Employee affiliate programs are one way that brands encourage their people to help sell products. This kind of program allows employees to promote the products or services to their personal networks and earn a benefit when their referral codes or links lead to a desired action, like purchasing.

Many organizations already had these affiliate programs for influencers and creators, but with the rise of EGC content, they’ve started to invite employees to hop in on the program. Gap has opened their influencer affiliate program to their employees, allowing them to take part in content opportunities by expressing their personal style, helping to explain product specifics, and building connections that other influencers aren’t able to.

Gap’s SVP of Marketing Shared Services, Damon Berger, said it best:

“Our employees know our brands, products, and customers better than anyone. By expanding this program to eligible employees across our offices, stores, and distribution centers, we’re giving them a way to become influencers — earning commission and product while sharing what they love and bringing our brands to life through authentic storytelling.”

The connection between employer and employee can be incredibly mutually beneficial. While employee affiliate programs create an opportunity for employees to benefit from the sales they generate, consumers ultimately decide who’s worthy of their support. An affiliate code alone doesn’t create influence. Employees still need to build trust with their audiences and share products in a way that feels authentic and useful. When consumers choose to use an employee’s code, they’re showing that the relationship and recommendation carry real weight.

The Consumer Verdict

Employees are loving the benefit from these incentives, but how do customers feel?

Consumers are responding to EGC the same way they responded to the shift away from polished ads: They trust content that feels genuine. A staged product shot from a brand account reads as marketing, but a quick video from someone who works there is human. This approach is becoming even more important as audiences get better at tuning out anything that feels like a pitch.

Sprout Social’s June 2026 State of Social Media report found that 40% of consumers frequently discover a product or service through EGC, a number that jumps to 61% among Gen Z consumers who have grown up treating employees as the trustworthy source.

As social media continues to become a top search tool for many people, especially Gen Z, audiences are clearly comfortable hearing how other people feel about products — and that includes employees. Customers want to understand the quality of the product, to be heard, and to feel like their attention is valuable to the company. When employees make these connections online, it feels like a store experience from your couch, and people are checking with them first before heading to the store or ordering online.

With most consumers not only being on board with EGC but also appreciating it and seeking it out, it’s clear that EGC leverages the employee’s expertise — and the audiences who follow them for it — can have a meaningful impact.

EGC Pays Off

The payoff goes beyond a single viral post. Employee-shared content generates eight times more engagement than content from a brand’s official page, according to Single Grain, since audiences can spot manufactured content almost instantly. Data from Edelman and LinkedIn, highlighted by Nifty Comms, confirms personal posts reach farther and outperform company pages for the same reason. For brands willing to loosen the reins, that return shows up in engagement and sales, not just impressions.

As EGC continues to resonate with audiences, brands are finding new ways to make employee voices part of their strategy. Starbucks baristas have built entire followings around behind-the-counter content, from drink hacks and custom orders to daily routines and glimpses into what it’s really like to work at Starbucks. Creators like @ericalovesee bring their own personalities to that content, giving audiences someone to follow beyond the corporate account. The result is a more human look at the brand that feels like a conversation with someone who knows the products firsthand.

Meghan Curran, an Anthropologie artist who creates window and store displays at the Indianapolis location, has built a following by showing that Anthropologie hires artists rather than mass-producing displays. That commitment resonates with customers, employees, and locals.

Coach has also embraced workers showing up on platforms like TikTok, giving employees the freedom to create content around the products they know best. Creators like @willatcoach bring their own perspective, personality, and product knowledge to the platform rather than simply repeating brand talking points. That expertise gives audiences a reason to keep watching and creates a connection that feels more like following a creator than watching an advertisement.

Your People Are Part of the Story

EGC isn’t a “trend” that businesses can afford to sit out on. The employees who know a product best, who use it, sell it, and answer questions about it every day, are the experts your customer wants to hear from. Give the people closest to your product and your customers room to reach the audiences who already love them, or who have real, unscripted questions worth answering. That’s where trust gets built; not through another polished ad, but through a real person giving a real answer.

At Britton, we have employees who are thought leaders, artists, and community members. Their organic content reaches people we don’t see every day as an agency, which gives our work, culture, and ideas more visibility and more chances to connect. We’ve seen the importance of EGC firsthand, and we plan to keep watching — and learning from — what it means for our strategies as it continues to evolve.

Follow some employees turned influencers from this article to take a true deep dive into the world of EGC, look at the comments, and experience the strategy for yourself. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised! Follow us and get in touch to talk more about this social media strategy.

Dear Midwest,

You have given us so much.

For 20 years, you have given us a place to build, create, grow, and call home, but more than that, you’ve allowed us to bring heart to great work.

Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of doing incredible work alongside the brands, businesses, and organizations that call this place home. We’ve watched them dream bigger, take risks, and change the game with creative ideas and execution that stand alongside anything happening in the biggest cities in the country.

We chose to build Britton here.

We could have chased the bright lights and fast pace of coastal cities, but we wanted something different. We wanted to establish a company rooted in heart, authenticity, curiosity, and kindness. Most of all, we wanted to do our work somewhere those values weren’t just words on a page but part of the culture around us.

Here, a conversation doesn’t always need an agenda, a favor doesn’t always need a return, and a relationship doesn’t have to begin with, “What can you do for me?” There is a genuine willingness to help, to check in, to make an introduction, to open a door, or simply to show up because it’s the right thing to do.

That spirit has shaped the kind of place we wanted to develop and the kind of work we want to put into the world.

Being rooted here has also shaped how we approach our work. We don’t just study the audiences our clients want to reach; we live among them. We shop where they shop, raise our families here, spend our weekends here, support local businesses, experience the seasons, celebrate the wins, and understand the everyday moments that make this community what it is.

We aren’t looking at the audience from the outside. We’re part of it, and that perspective is something you can’t manufacture.

Perhaps what means the most are the relationships cultivated over these two decades. The original team members who helped lay the foundation, the talented minds who joined along the way, the clients who trusted us with their brands, the partners who believed in our ideas, the friends and families who cheered us on, and the community that has continued to make room for what comes next.

Our families are here. Our memories are here. Our roots are here. Our heart is here.

After 20 years, there is no question that this is where we’re meant to be.

Thank you for letting us grow here. Thank you for challenging us, supporting us, believing in us, and reminding us that where you build something matters just as much as what you make. Thank you for showing us that ambition and heart don’t have to live in different places, and that some of the most meaningful work can be crafted right here in the Midwest.

There is so much to be proud of when we look back, but what makes us even more excited is everything still ahead. The ideas we haven’t had yet, the relationships we haven’t built, the businesses we haven’t helped grow, and the next generation of talent who will bring their own perspective to what comes next.

The best part is that we get to do it here. Here’s to the next 20 years!

With so much love,

Britton

Personal style no longer stops at the closet door. When you think about it, that makes perfect sense. The colors we wear, the materials we’re drawn to, and the prints we return to again and again are deeply personal. Over time, they become a visual language all their own. So, it feels natural that the same instincts shaping our wardrobes are also finding their way into our homes.

A powder-blue dress and a powder-blue wall. A shearling coat and a shearling chair. The stitching on a handbag echoed in the upholstery of a sofa. Each choice becomes part of the same visual story, expressed in different ways.

Two Industries, One Cultural Moment

Fashion and interiors have always influenced each other, but the relationship feels especially interesting right now. Both industries are responding to a growing desire for choices that feel personal, considered, and full of character. People want their homes to reflect who they are with the same intention as their clothing. The goal is to create a point of view that feels distinctly your own.

Anastasia Kandalin, our Senior Art Director, puts it this way:

“Style decisions used to be functional: dressing appropriately for the occasion, updating a home with resale value in mind. Now they’re expressive. We want our choices, in both wardrobe and home, to reflect a specific, considered point of view rather than a trend we saw on social media. Clothing and home décor are merging because they’re really the same expression in two different forms. Both are visible, everyday extensions of identity: one worn, one lived in. In an increasingly impersonal world, cohesion reads as intentional and self-defined, which is exactly what we’re craving right now.”

That shared expression is showing up most clearly through color, construction, and pattern.

Color Stories That Move Between Fashion and Home

Rather than tracking individual colors, it’s more useful to understand the three larger movements at work right now, because the same color stories are appearing in fashion and interiors simultaneously, driven by the same cultural instincts.

1. Romantic Pastels

Romantic pastels such as powder blue, pale pink, mint, ecru, soft yellow, and silvery neutrals are bringing a lighter feeling to both clothing and interiors. In fashion, they often appear through delicate fabrics and softer silhouettes. At home, they’re showing up in paint, bedding, upholstery, cabinetry, and decorative glass.

A recent Cecilie Bahnsen x Blēo collaboration offers a beautiful example of romantic whimsy moving from fashion into interiors. Bahnsen’s romantic Scandinavian style translates naturally into a home paint collection, allowing the feeling of one of her dresses to extend into a room. You can wear the color on a Tuesday and live with it every day.

2. Earthy Warmth and Elevated Neutrals

Earthier palettes are moving between the two industries just as easily. Chocolate brown, amber, terracotta, caramel, burgundy, and burnt orange create warmth without quietly fading into the background. Fashion brings these shades to life through leather, suede, knitwear, handbags, and outerwear, while interiors interpret them through dark wood, clay-toned paint, terracotta tile, leather upholstery, amber glass, and warm metal finishes.

Much of that connection comes from material just as much as color. A brown leather bag and a leather chair may belong to the same palette, but texture, scale, and finish give each one a completely different presence. These colors also reward layering. Fashion understands the appeal of pairing suede with wool or leather with a soft knit, while interiors create a similar richness by mixing wood, tile, textiles, and metal within the same warm family.

3. Saturated Brights and Jewel Tones

At the other end of the spectrum, saturated brights and jewel tones are making confident appearances in both wardrobes and rooms. Scarlet, emerald, teal, violet, fuchsia, cobalt, and deep blue often become the statement piece in fashion. In an interior, they can become the entire world.

Vermelho Hotel by Christian Louboutin is a wonderful example of color moving across industries. Louboutin’s signature color sensibility extends across walls, tile, furniture, artwork, and decorative details, creating an environment that feels completely committed to its Parisian roots. It’s the interior design equivalent of putting together a bold outfit, looking in the mirror, and walking out the door with complete confidence.

The Details Are Moving In, Too

Color may be the most visible connection between fashion and interiors, but it’s only the beginning. The relationship also appears in the way objects are made. Think about the details that make a well-made garment or accessory worth noticing like visible stitching, careful piping, structured quilting, or hand-finished edges. Those same techniques are appearing in furniture, upholstery, seating, and decorative objects. Braiding, embroidery, and precise finishing bring the same sense of care to a chair that they might bring to a coat or handbag. The result is furniture that can command attention like a runway piece while still feeling comfortable and livable.

Fendi Casa (yes, that Fendi) is one of the clearest examples of big fashion moving into the home. The artisan stitching techniques associated with the fashion house’s leather goods now reappear as furniture details. Leatherworking developed for accessories is applied to seating with the same precision. Hardware that might finish a handbag becomes an accent on a chair, while shearling moves from outerwear to upholstery without losing any of its tactile appeal. The pieces carry the same visual language as Fendi’s fashion collections. Even before you identify every detail, you can sense the luxury behind the piece.

The Fornasetti x Poltrona Frau collaboration, on the other hand, takes the materials conversation in a more unexpected direction. Fornasetti is known for surreal, graphic prints, while Poltrona Frau is celebrated for its leatherwork. Together, they apply Fornasetti imagery to leather furniture in a way that makes the surface resemble paper, newspaper, or printed fabric. The result plays with your perception. Leathercraft, graphic print, and upholstery begin to overlap, creating the same kind of visual tension that makes an outfit interesting. Fashion often places soft materials beside hard ones, handmade textures against industrial forms, or polished surfaces next to something worn and tactile. Interiors are using those contrasts in many of the same ways. The details may change, but the instinct is shared: thoughtful contrast gives the eye a reason to linger.

Patterns You Can Wear and Live In

Pattern is another place where the line between fashion and interiors is becoming more fluid. Prints now move easily across clothing, bedding, upholstery, wallcoverings, and hospitality spaces. The most interesting examples allow the pattern to exist in several settings at once, creating a stronger connection between the person and the space around them.

Laila Gohar’s collaboration with Marimekko captures that idea beautifully. Known for her warm, playful, and maximalist approach, Gohar applied archival Marimekko stripes across pajamas, bedding, sleep accessories, and home objects within the same collection. The collection is a world you can wear and live inside at the same time. Clothing and the room become part of one continuous visual experience rather than two unrelated style decisions. The person and the space feel like they’re in conversation with each other.

That same desire to build a complete visual world can be found close to home at The Bradley Hotel in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Vera Bradley’s pattern-rich aesthetic expands across wallpaper, textiles, carpeting, and furnishings, turning a familiar design language into a full hospitality experience. For the Britton team, it’s a meaningful local example of how a signature motif can grow beyond a product and shape an entire environment. The hotel feels considered from the inside out, with details that connect the rooms, shared spaces, and overall atmosphere. It’s also a reminder that memorable interiors often begin with one interesting idea, carried through with confidence.

A New Definition of Personal Style

The boundary between fashion and interiors is becoming more fluid, and much more interesting. A color seen on the runway can inspire an architectural finish. The construction of a handbag can influence the upholstery of a chair. A print designed to be worn can become bedding, wallpaper, or the defining feature of a hotel lobby.

These examples reflect a broader shift in how people think about personal style. Clothing and interiors are becoming connected ways to express taste, identity, and the feeling someone wants to create around them. People aren’t only choosing an outfit or decorating a room. They’re building a personal world — one color, texture, and detail at a time.

As fashion and interiors continue to move closer together, some of the most thoughtful work in both industries will come from the space between them. It’s a good time to pay attention to what you love wearing and consider how those same instincts might shape the way you live.

There’s a reason people stay at Britton, both clients and employees alike. The people who work here tend to stay, grow, and bring their full selves to work in a way that feels increasingly rare. Twenty years of care, intention, and shared standards have shaped that kind of environment.

When you walk into our agency, you can feel the connection between the people and the work. There’s an energy that comes from a small team that’s deeply invested in one another and in what they create together. Warmth and a serious commitment to the details exist side by side. Creative reviews are honest and grounded in mutual respect. Hard weeks are noticed and met with genuine care. Wins, big and small, are celebrated because they matter.

This is the culture we’ve been building for twenty years. It comes from the people, and you can feel it in every relationship, every conversation, and everything we make.

We Always Hold Ourselves to a High Standard

Extraordinary is a word we use carefully here. For us, it is the standard applied to every project, every conversation, and every decision about how to show up for the people we work with, including the work that no one outside the agency will ever see. Our team asks harder questions than they need to. They care about the outcome long after the work has gone live. They take real pride in the execution at every level of a project, and that pride is contagious. It is one of our favorite things about this place.

What that looks like in practice is a team that genuinely cannot let something go when it is not quite right yet. We want to push further, to ask whether the idea is as good as it can be before calling it done. That quality of attention is something our clients notice quickly, and it‘s something that has defined our reputation over twenty years of work across categories, budgets, and creative challenges. That standard doesn’t flex based on the size of the project. It is just our standard.

We Build Together

The best work rarely comes from one person or one department working alone. It happens when operations, accounts, creative, and strategy are all part of the conversation, each bringing a different perspective and asking questions that make the work better. We have learned that lesson over time, often by seeing the difference between conversations that happen early and the ones that happen too late. When a strategist joins a creative review, the idea gets sharper. When the operations team understands the client relationship, they can approach challenges with more insight. When everyone has the full picture, we make better decisions together.

We work the same way with our clients. We bring them in early, keep them close to the process, and make sure they understand not only what we are creating, but why. We never want to disappear behind the curtain and return with something finished that feels unfamiliar. The strongest work is shaped together.

We believe this kind of collaboration builds a deeper kind of trust over time. Not the generic kind of trust that simply keeps a project moving, but the kind that gives us the confidence to take risks together, have honest conversations, and push the work somewhere more interesting. Clients become true partners in the process, and the work becomes more thoughtful because it reflects everything we have learned together. Many of our longest client relationships have grown this way, and the work that comes from those partnerships continues to be some of the work we’re most proud of.

We Genuinely Take Care of Each Other

Empathy is a core value for our agency and that shapes our culture in meaningful, everyday ways. People here are cared for as whole people, not just as employees. We make room for real life, show up for one another during hard seasons, and celebrate our wins in a way that feels personal.

Our leadership is genuinely invested in each person’s growth. We care about what people are learning, where they want to go, and what they need to do their best work. The goal isn’t to get more from people. It’s to create an environment where they can become more, with the support, challenge, and opportunities they need to grow.

Clients feel that same sense of care. There is a warmth in how we work that cannot be manufactured or duplicated. We don’t just manage accounts or move projects through a process. We get to know our clients, take their goals seriously, and treat their trust as something we have to earn again and again. Many of our longest client relationships began with that feeling. Clients knew early on that we were genuinely invested, and we continued to prove it over time. We are proud of those relationships, not just because they have lasted, but because they reflect the kind of partner we work hard to be.

Every Client Gets Something Built for Them

Every company that comes to us is treated as its own creative and strategic challenge. We don’t believe in pulling a solution off the shelf or repeating what worked for someone else. The work should feel specific to who they are, who they are trying to reach, and what they are trying to accomplish. That means approaching every brief with real curiosity. We take the time to understand what makes the company different, what its audience cares about, and where the most meaningful opportunity lies. The work we create for one client should not look like the work we create for another, because no two clients need exactly the same thing.

We’re also intentional about the clients we take on because we know what it takes to do excellent work at the standard we expect of ourselves. When we commit to a partnership, that client receives the same level of care, thought, and respect, regardless of the size of the budget.

Our work with the New American Middle makes that depth of thinking possible. Through years of studying this audience and conducting our own research, we have developed a unique understanding of how these consumers make decisions, what matters to them, and what earns their trust. That perspective shapes the work from the very beginning. As an agency, we’ve moved beyond just cold demographics, and instead we build strategies around the real people our clients want to reach. We’ve proven that the difference between work that simply exists and work that truly connects often comes down to how well you understand the person on the other side of it.

Our Work Reflects Our People

When someone works with Britton, they’re getting a team that has spent twenty years building a culture around the same things we help brands communicate: authenticity, quality, and a genuine desire to connect. These are the values we have been living in every project and every relationship since the start.

We’re proud of what we have built and genuinely excited about what comes next. After twenty years, we’re still growing, still curious, and still holding ourselves to the same high standard. Spend a little time with our people, and you will understand our work.

There’s a reason people call them fur babies. The way many of us feel about our pets has become deeply personal. You can see it in the cat featured in the holiday card, the hundreds of photos saved on a phone, or the decision to choose a home based on whether pets are welcome. Yet much of pet marketing still fails to capture what this relationship truly feels like.

For a growing and increasingly influential share of the population, pets are family. Full stop. The bond between people and their pets has always mattered, but the level of care, spending, and consideration surrounding that bond has evolved. Whether you sell pet food or financial services, understanding this relationship is key to understanding how Gen Z and Millennials make decisions.

As Love Increases, So Does Spending

The U.S. pet industry reached $158 billion in 2025, projecting $165 billion in 2026, and has grown for more than two decades without a single dip. That kind of market resilience doesn’t happen because people treat pet spending as optional. It happens because the emotional logic driving pet parents is the same logic that makes parents spend on their children without hesitation. When someone matters to you, you take care of them, and you don’t stop just because times get hard.

To understand why this is happening, it helps to look at the bigger picture. American birth rates have declined 23% since 2007, hitting their lowest point on record in 2024. 30% of Millennials and Gen Z have also reported that they don’t have or want children. At the same time, these are the generations with the highest pet ownership rates in modern American history. The connection here isn’t incidental. The desire to nurture, protect, and provide for someone beyond yourself is a fundamental human drive. It doesn’t disappear when people have fewer children or choose not to have them at all. Instead, that drive redirects, and for a growing share of the population, it goes to the dog waiting by the door or the cat who has claimed the warmest spot in the house.

Caregiving isn’t the only thing that gets redirected — spending does too. Gen Z pet owners spend an average of $178 a month on their animals while Millennials spend $146. For context, that’s more than the average American water bill. The fact is that spending rises alongside the emotional investment, and for the generations now driving consumer spending, that investment runs deep. They are devoted, values-driven pet parents making intentional decisions for the creatures in their care.

It’s important to recognize that the love people feel for their pets is not a charming exaggeration. It is neurologically real, and research has found that a mother’s attachment to her pet activates the same brain regions as her attachment to her child. Brands can tap into those emotional lessons and treat four-legged friends as an honored family member, rather than a generational novelty.

The Values Connection

Generational ideas about what constitutes a family may have changed, but the importance of family-centered decision-making has not. Our 2026 New American Middle research found that family, in all forms, is the top value among working-age Americans. It also found that 68% of this audience has recommended a brand specifically because of its values. For marketers, that creates a powerful opportunity. Brands that genuinely understand and reflect how people define family today are more likely to earn trust, loyalty, and the kind of word-of-mouth advocacy that traditional advertising can’t buy.

Keep in mind that pet parents bring the same attentiveness to every purchase they make for their animals as parents do for their children. They research. They read labels. They remember which brands felt right and which ones felt like they were being sold to. In a very real sense, the standard to which they hold brands for their pets mirrors the standard for their children. Earning that trust is not about having the right product features. It is about demonstrating that you respect what this relationship means to them.

Why So Much Pet Marketing Misses the Mark

The pet industry has no shortage of brands that genuinely want to connect with this consumer. The challenge is that wanting to build a connection and actually earning one are two very different things. That gap is where we see a lot of pet marketing fail in the execution.

1. One of the most common mistakes is leading with cuteness instead of values. Adorable creative is easy to produce and easy to scroll past, but a puppy running through a garden is not a strategy. When every brand reaches for the same warm imagery and feel-good language, none of them are saying much of anything. Consumers who love their pets like family can feel the difference between a brand that truly understands that bond and one that is simply reflecting their emotions back to them without offering any real depth.
2. The second mistake is competing on features or price in a category where neither is the primary driver. Pet parents are not primarily asking which food has the best ingredient list or which brand has the lowest cost per ounce. They are asking which brand they can trust with someone who matters to them. Trust is not built through comparison charts on your website. It’s built through consistent, genuine communication that demonstrates a brand understands who its customer is and what is actually at stake for them.
3. The third, and perhaps most costly, mistake is underestimating the power of the pet parent community. These consumers talk to one another. They read reviews with the same care a parent might bring to researching a car seat. They switch brands when something feels off, and they stay loyal when something feels right. A pet brand that earns genuine trust does more than secure a repeat purchase. It earns an advocate in the conversations, communities, and private recommendations that advertising can’t reach.

To connect with this audience, marketers need to understand the deeper why behind consumer choices. Our advice? Stop leading with the product and start leading with the relationship underneath it.

Pet Brands Getting It Right

Chewy, for example, sends personalized birthday cards with discounts tailored to each pet. It’s a simple gesture, but it makes the relationship feel personal rather than transactional. The message is that their pet is worth celebrating.

Zesty Paws takes a similar approach through its 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. By replacing or refunding products that aren’t the right fit, they give pet parents the freedom to keep searching for the best science-backed supplement for their pet. They’re recognizing that pet care is personal, and finding the right solution can take time.

Aloft by Marriott carries that same sense of care into the travel experience through its ARF® program. Water bowls, treats, toys, and other thoughtful touches help guests feel like they don’t have to leave part of their family behind when they travel. The amenities may be small, but the message is meaningful: your whole family is welcome here.

These details matter because they go beyond convenience. They show pet parents that the depth of the relationship is understood and respected. That’s the kind of care people remember, talk about, and share. Marketing that reflects the attention pet parents give their animals is more likely to earn trust and loyalty. Creative that treats pets as props, on the other hand, will feel hollow to people living a much deeper and more meaningful relationship every day.

Everyone Benefits from Understanding This Connection

95 million American households owned at least one pet in 2025. That covers the majority of audiences for brands operating at any real scale. Hotels, real estate companies, financial services providers, wellness brands, retailers: any brand whose customers include pet owners has something to gain from understanding what values are factoring into every purchase decision they make.

For instance, a real estate agent that speaks to where a dog can run is talking to their buyers’ actual concerns. A financial advisor that factors pet care into planning conversations can show that they understand the full needs of a household. The goal is to understand the family your customer has built and meet them there with genuine respect for what that family looks like.

Embrace the New Definition of Family

People didn’t wait for a market trend report to tell them what their pets meant to them. That was settled the first morning they woke up with a dog pressed against their side or spent twenty minutes choosing a birthday treat for a cat who will never know the difference (but absolutely deserves it anyway — Churus, am I right?). The love for pets is real, it’s growing, and it’s one of the most genuine expressions of caregiving in modern America.

What pet parents are looking for from brands is simple. They want to feel seen. They want the brands in their lives to recognize what they have built, acknowledge what it means to them, and show up in a way that honors it. It’s not a high bar, but it’s definitely a human one.

After all, in this new family everyone counts, even the one sleeping at the foot of the bed.

Think about the last brand you genuinely trusted. You know, the one you recommended to someone you care about or defended when a friend was skeptical. That kind of trust in a product doesn’t come from a well-placed ad or a strong social presence. It comes from a slow accumulation of evidence that a brand knows what it is talking about, means what it says, and will still be saying the same thing a year from now. It is built visibly over time, through consistency that compounds.

Most business owners want that kind of trust and have no clear path to earning it. They have a website, a social presence, maybe some press coverage, but nothing that shows how they actually think, what they genuinely believe, or whether their values hold up under any real scrutiny. A blog done well is the answer to that problem, and most brands have either abandoned it or have never taken it seriously enough to find out what it could do for them.

Trust Must Be Demonstrated

There’s a version of brand trust that businesses try to manufacture through campaigns. Things like a values statement on the “About” page or a partnership with a cause announced on social. None of that is wrong, exactly, but none of it is convincing on its own, because customers have seen enough of it to know that declarations cost nothing. What they’re actually looking for is evidence.

Evidence looks like showing up with a real point of view, consistently, over time. It looks like writing about what you know in a way that only your brand could have written it. It looks like being specific enough that a customer finishes reading and thinks “this company understands my world” rather than “that was fine.” It looks like a body of work that proves your values are not just decoration. 70% of people say they prefer learning about a company through its content rather than through advertising. That preference reflects something deeper than a media format. People do not trust things they are sold. Instead, they trust things they discover, explore, and come to believe in on their own terms.

What Your Other Channels Bring to The Table

If you have invested in PR, keep investing. A well-placed feature in the right publication does real work, and third-party credibility is genuinely valuable. The limitation is that someone else is writing the story. A journalist decides the angle, chooses which quotes survive, and writes the headline. They can capture everything true about your business and still miss the specific thing that would have mattered most to the customer who was deciding whether to call you.

Social media keeps you visible and present with people who already know you exist. But it’s simply not built for the kind of depth that trust requires. A caption can point toward an idea but cannot hold one fully. The formats that perform best on social are built for attention, rather than conviction, and conviction is what lasting customer relationships are made of.

Your blog is the only channel where you control the authorship, the framing, the length, and the context all at once, with nothing in between. No algorithm deciding who sees it. No editor deciding what stays. No advertiser shaping the message. You get to make the full case for who you are and what you believe, directly to the person who needs to hear it, in as much depth as it takes to actually land.

The Compounding Effect

Here’s what happens when a business publishes consistently and genuinely over time: those posts accumulate into something that no single campaign or piece of coverage can replicate. A navigable, searchable, demonstrable record of how your brand thinks and what it knows.

When a prospective customer is deciding whether to trust you enough to spend money with you, they rarely read one post and make up their mind. They read several, looking for consistency of voice, depth of knowledge, and whether your brand has something real to say or is just filling space. That judgment requires a body of work to exist. According to HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing Report, businesses that blog consistently are more likely to see positive ROI. We’ve seen that content published years ago continues building credibility long after it was written. Remember, credibility does not depreciate the way a paid campaign does. It compounds!

There’s also something else worth noting here. AI can now produce unlimited generic content at essentially no cost, which means the generic blog is worth nothing because anyone can have one for free. What that means is the specific, opinionated, genuinely human blog is more valuable than it’s ever been. A business that has something real to say, and that says it consistently over years, is increasingly rare. That rarity is a real competitive advantage for the brands willing to earn it.

The Clock is Ticking

Go back to the brand you thought of at the beginning. The one you genuinely trust. That trust was built slowly, through repeated evidence that the brand was exactly what it said it was. Your customers are forming that same judgment about you right now, with whatever evidence you have given them to work with.

Your blog is where you give them more. Forget about traffic and instead focus on trust, real and lasting trust, built post by post, over time, by someone willing to stand for something out loud. If you are ready to start building that kind of credibility, we would love to help you find your voice.

We’ve been wanting to introduce Meg Tiffany properly for a while now.

You may have seen the announcement. You may have met her at an event or worked with her already on a project. What you might not know yet is the full story of how she got here. The way Meg came to Britton, and back to Fort Wayne, says everything about who she is and what she is here to build.

Meg started as a graphic designer, spent years leading creative teams at national brands across the country, and made a deliberate choice to return to the Midwest in search of something she had come to value more than titles or career momentum: a culture built on genuine respect, empathy, and real collaboration. She found that here, first as our Agency Director under Sue Britton, and now as the person we have trusted to carry this agency forward.

Sue and Jeff Britton built something rare over the last twenty years: a culture that actually lives its values with work that is both beautiful and measurable. They built a team that genuinely wants to show up. Meg is not here to change what makes this place what it is. She is here to protect it, amplify it, and make it even stronger.

We sat down with her so you could get to know her the way we do.

You started as a graphic designer and creative director before moving into leadership. How does that foundation still shape the way you work today?

For a long time, I was very portfolio-driven. That was just how the industry worked. You were hired based on your book, and it creates this ego for designers where you’re very focused on what you personally created and what it does for your career. I fully drank that Kool-Aid. I wanted the things that would make my work look cool, take me to new places, and open new doors.

Over time, that started to feel off for me personally. I got really interested in the collaborative side of things, in recognizing everyone who went into the work alongside me. The photographer, the fellow directors, the stylists, the producers, the retouchers, etc… Those relationships started to matter more than my individual output.

Then I got my first real leadership role in California, with direct reports, and that changed everything. The first time one of my team members had a big win, I was more excited about it than I had ever been about any wins of my own. Their win became my win. I remember thinking, “Ohhhhh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

The design background still matters, because I genuinely wouldn’t know how to help someone if I hadn’t done the job myself. The ambition just shifted for me. Other people’s growth became the thing I cared about most. Their success became far more important than my own portfolio.

What advice do you have for other creatives interested in following a leadership path?

I also have to be honest that I was a very nosy designer in my early years. To a fault, honestly. I wanted to know the data, the why, etc… People sometimes would give me that “why are you in my business? This isn’t your swim lane” kind of look. But squeaky as I was, I believe to this day in the importance of cross-functional collaboration, and that better understanding what other partners know will only make the work stronger!

I’ve come to find that a lot of creatives are wired that way. We are DEEPLY curious creatures and it’s really important to use that curiosity to guide you. For me, it helped me form a love for the strategic side of things and understand marketing in a way that “staying in my designer lane” maybe wouldn’t have led to. So my advice is this … Don’t let the boundaries of your job description set your limitations in knowledge. Use that creative curiosity to be a sponge and learn from others within your team and outside of it. Maybe just find a better way than I did to make your intentions and perceptions match!

You spent years at major brands across the country before coming back to Fort Wayne. What were you looking for, and what did you find here?

When we left Fort Wayne, I bawled my eyes out. I remember sitting on the couch our last night in the house just sobbing, because I was genuinely convinced we were never coming back. Fort Wayne is not a big city, and I had big ambitions, and I thought those two things just weren’t compatible.

So, I went. Baltimore, San Francisco, and Rochester. And I learned a ton. And every time we came back to visit, because we still had family here, the city felt different. There was more happening downtown and more energy overall. It kept surprising us!

Then Sue reached out and asked if I knew anyone who might be interested in being her successor. I genuinely didn’t realize she was talking about me! When she followed up and made it clear she was, it was just this moment of wow. Fort Wayne was suddenly back on the table in a way I never imagined.

What I was really looking for, and this became clearer the further along I got in my career, was a culture where the values were actually lived. I had worked places where the values looked great on paper, but the reality was different. You’d hear how things were “unofficially” and I’ve learned that a disconnect like that can be a warning sign for burnout. At Britton, you can see and feel our values in how we work every day. Respect is an expectation, not just a hope.

The Meg who left ten years ago wasn’t ready for this job. She needed to go do all of that first. So, I’m genuinely glad I went. I’m also glad to be wrong about what was possible here in Fort Wayne.

What does Britton’s culture actually feel like from the inside?

Honestly? It’s highly unusual, and I mean that as a true compliment.

A lot of places put their values on a wall and don’t actually live them. They might not even realize they’re not living them. What’s different here is that the values aren’t aspirational. They’re operational. If something’s off, we address it, and that expectation is real.

What the team feels, I think, is genuine respect. Their voice matters and we think about how decisions affect them before we make them. We think about mental capacity. We think about whether taking on a piece of work puts someone in a position they’d be uncomfortable in. And we use it as a true guide in the hiring process — we have a “no jerks rule” and we take that pretty seriously because if you can’t be respectful to your teammates, Britton isn’t the right place for you. Our values truly shape the choices we make every day.

Clients feel it too, just differently. We treat them as real partners. We’re not experts who just roll in and tell you what to think. We take time to actually understand what’s going on. People can tell the difference between being genuinely seen and being processed. We’re in the business of the former.

You describe yourself as values-driven and people-first. What does that look like in practice when you’re leading a creative agency?

It means putting others’ needs before my own. Not just me personally, but as an agency. Our team comes first, full stop. If our people are genuinely cared for, everything else follows. We are nobody without them.

That shows up in a lot of ways: which clients we take on, how we think about growth, whether we’re protecting people’s capacity or just piling things on. We don’t only ask, “Can we win this work?” We ask what it means for the people who’ll actually do it.

We’ve also been really intentional about building what I think of as an employee-led company. We’re not employee-owned, and that’s okay, but we can still be employee-led. Our steering committee exists so that when we’re making big decisions, the right voices are in the room, either directly or through someone who represents them.

The AI Governance Committee is a good recent example. I’m not a top AI expert and I’m not going to pretend to be. Getting smarter people into that conversation isn’t a weakness — it’s just how you solve hard problems well. Also, it means I get to benefit from people who know more than I do about it.

I had a manager once who told me: when you grow, I grow. He gave me a runway instead of a leash, and it changed how I thought about leadership entirely. He wasn’t afraid of my ambition and knew that if I leveled up at any time, that just helped the whole. That’s the energy I want to bring here because pretending I always have to be the expert, to always have the answer, gets us nowhere we want to be.

Where are you taking the agency, and what do you want Britton to be known for?

Creatively, I want the world to know what has always been true here: we don’t just make beautiful things. We make beautiful things that work, that move business, that are measurable. That’s not a new direction. It’s a truth we’ve always had, and we’re going to say it louder.

There’s also something structural I’m genuinely excited about. Our research and strategy capability has always been deep. For a while, it lived under a sub-brand called [B]right, and I understand why that decision was made. There was a moment of time where a design agency that could also conduct market research felt like a mismatch. You had to separate the “super smart” from the “super creative” for anyone to take you seriously in either space.

We’re done with that framing. Why can’t we do stunningly beautiful design and also be deeply data-driven? Why can’t women be analysts and strategists and creative directors all at once? The sub-brand was a workaround for a bias that never should have existed. We’re reclaiming research and strategy as a full Britton strength. It belongs to us. It always did.

More broadly, I want us to be a model for other agencies. Our values have become our operating system, and I want that to be such a clear part of our reputation that people feel it before we ever explain it. While we’re at it, let’s throw open the doors and let people see what’s actually happening here. We’re in the 4% of women-led agencies, and that number has to grow. And as I’ve mentioned, we’re running the business in a very human, respect-driven way that I’d love others to learn from. There’s too much gatekeeping in this industry, and it serves no one. We all rise in the tide together.

What would you like to be known for as the leader of Britton?

When people ask me about my vision, I’ll be honest that it used to make me a bit uncomfortable. I think that’s because I’ve had a front-row seat to what vision can look like when it goes wrong.

I’ve watched leaders walk into companies and flip the tables — bulldozing what was already beautiful, usually the culture, and leaving the team in shambles. And looking back, even at places I haven’t personally worked, you can almost pinpoint those moments in a brand’s history to one person, one decision, or one season of unlived values. It’s devastating and nine times out of ten, it was never really about vision when you get down to it. It was about someone wanting to make their mark — ego if you will.

So, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting with what I actually want to be known for. And what I keep coming back to is: I want the opposite of that. I don’t want to dismantle anything in the name of “new”.

Britton has become a place where people want to come to work and that doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because this company has taken care of its people, made them feel seen and respected and valued. That is rare and worth protecting.

I want to be known as a steward leader. A steward of the heart of Britton — the culture, the empathy, the empowerment, the people. I want to protect what’s already here and make it so strong that it outlasts me.

What does creativity look like for you when you’re not at work?

My instinct is to tell you I watercolor, I do printmaking, I’ve been working on a portrait of my dog for approximately three years because I never have time to finish it. All of that is true.

Really, though, reading is probably my most consistent creative practice.

You can’t keep producing creative work if you’re not giving your brain time to reset. Reading does that for me in a way that could be considered creative maintenance. It lets my mind wander outside of my normal creative scope and allows me to come back with more energy and focus. And sometimes with some really cool new words. HA! It’s really a hobby that takes care of what powers my creativity and makes that creativity possible.

The dog portrait will get finished eventually. Probably.

Meg Tiffany is the President and Chief Creative Officer of Britton Marketing & Design Group. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

There is a person who has been buying from your company for years. They found your brand before it was popular, or maybe right when it was hitting its stride, and they decided it was worth trusting. They told their sister about you. They defended your products in a comment thread when someone complained. They gave your product to someone they love because recommending it felt like an extension of their own good judgment.

These customers aren’t asking for much and they never were. They want you to keep making something good. They want you to be the same brand next year that you were last year. They want you to mean what you say.

We call them the New American Middle.

Our latest study surveyed them across every U.S. region, and what came back was less a demand for innovation, and more a quiet request from a consumer who has been waiting for brands to remember what matters in the first place.

You Already Know This Person

The New American Middle is not a demographic, and that distinction matters. They are not a segment defined by income bracket, zip code, age, race, gender, or political affiliation. You cannot find them by targeting a life stage or filtering by household size. What defines them is a shared psychology: a set of values they live by, a way of moving through the world, and a genuine desire to find brands that reflect who they actually are.

Their primary values are:

• family
• health and wellness
• quality
• respect
• transparency

Rounding out the picture are secondary values that include responsibility, spirituality, joy, authenticity, and creativity. What we know from studying these values is that these are people who are intentional about what they bring into their lives, and when they find something worth believing in, they hold onto it. They are pragmatic and loyal. They evaluate brands on whether values and quality align, and when a brand earns their trust, they become its most genuine advocates. They recommend with conviction and defend what they love fiercely. They bring the brands they believe in into their homes and share them with the people they care about most.

They are 60% of the U.S. population, and the reason our research keeps returning to them is that they are the consumer most brands are already serving without fully understanding. You have already seen them in your retention data. You have watched them write the kind of review that actually converts new customers. You have felt their loyalty in the channels where everything else was uncertain. You may not have had a name for them in the past, but you have known them.

Our research gives you the clearest picture we have drawn of who the New American Middle is nationally. How they show up for your brand specifically, what they value most in your category, and the gaps between what you are offering and what they are looking for.

They Are Asking for Something Simpler Than You Think

The data here is genuinely exciting, because what this consumer is asking for turns out to be simpler than most brands expect. 66% of our respondents named product quality as their top purchase factor (four times more than price). When we asked what they want when a brand communicates its values, 70% said the same two things: consistency over time, and proof that the product actually does what they say it will. No bigger story, no flashy campaign that signals cultural awareness, no presence on a platform they haven’t asked you to be on. One respondent said it as plainly as it can be said: “Being well-made is more important than being cool or influencer-driven.”

Therefore, the ask is straightforward: do the thing you promised, do it consistently, and do it well enough that the person who trusted you first feels proud for having done so. What our data keeps surfacing is not that this audience is hard to reach. It’s that brands are overcomplicating a relationship this consumer never asked them to complicate, spending their energy competing with other brands instead of simply serving the people in front of them. This overcomplication has led to an erosion of trust that needs to be addressed.

The research points in a clear direction. Where it gets genuinely interesting is when you apply that same lens to your own customer base, because the specific version of quality and consistency this audience expects from a home goods brand is not the same thing they expect from a food brand or a wellness brand. The details matter but the details are different for everyone.

The Highest Trust You Can Earn Isn’t For Sale

Think about the last time you bought something because someone you trusted told you to. Not an ad, not a sponsored post, and not a carefully produced unboxing video. A real person, someone whose taste you respect and whose opinion you actually care about, looked at you and said, “you have to try this”. That moment is casual, unscripted, and completely genuine, and it is the most powerful marketing that exists. It always has been.

Our research confirms what most of us already know to be true. On our trust scale of 1 to 5, friends and family score 4.39 and customer reviews score 4.07. Influencer recommendations score 3.06, lower even than a brand’s own marketing, and 52% of our respondents said they trust influencers less than they did two to three years ago. The New American Middle is not looking to be convinced by someone they don’t know. They are looking for brands they can tell the people they love about.

That is the opportunity we see and do our best work around. The New American Middle is one of the most willing audiences in the country to become a brand’s most credible voice, and they do it for free, because they genuinely mean it. The brands earning that kind of advocacy are not manufacturing it or paying for it. They are doing the slower, less glamorous work of being genuinely worth talking about, over and over, until their customers become the most powerful marketing team they have ever had.

They Are Still There

Here is the heart of what our research found: this audience is not in retreat from the marketplace.

• 75% of our respondents said they trust brands the same or more than they did five years ago
• 92% would pay more for a brand whose values align with their own
• 68% have recommended a brand specifically because of its values and have publicly defended a brand they believe in

The New American Middle isn’t waiting for brands to figure them out. They are already telling you what they want. The question is whether you know specifically what they are saying about yours. We help brands get to that answer through research, strategy, and honest brand work that connects what you stand for, with what your customer is looking for. If that’s the conversation you’re ready to have, we would love to have it with you.