Catalysis

Research first, then the creative work

Catalysis works from Seattle, Washington, as a marketing and advertising agency with a 32-year history. Its method starts with research: its data and research teams examine what a client's customers want and need, then turn that into a clear hypothesis about the opportunity before any creative work begins. The agency calls its offer creative intelligence, in which research, strategy, brand and marketing technology feed one another. It says the aim is campaigns with a clear beginning, middle and end, and that it reviews honestly what is working and what the next move should be.

Strategy work spans how to understand an audience, how to position a brand, how to plan a launch into the market and how to judge whether marketing paid off. The agency presents itself as willing to report openly when a campaign falls short, which it links to its habit of forming careful hypotheses in the first place.

Media, analytics and marketing technology

On the media side, Catalysis runs campaign execution and ongoing optimization based on what the data shows. Its analytics practice looks at how tools and platforms join together, and the agency describes building marketing systems that reveal which channels and messages are doing the work. It says it brings artificial intelligence into that work where it helps, but treats some tasks as needing human judgment, because not everything that can be automated should be.

The firm also offers data and content audits, which review what a client already holds and what is missing. Its material describes earlier work for a large omni-channel retailer, where data and tooling were used to build the digital touchpoints that customers encounter.

Brands told through their purpose

Its brand and advertising work covers brand design and advertising campaigns across the whole customer journey. The agency argues that brands today need to be purpose-driven, and it helps them express that purpose through the stories of their products, people, partnerships and philanthropy. Creatives, strategists and media specialists focus on the purpose first, then build the mix of stories and experiences that carries it into the market.

Past clients named in its material include a regional credit union, boutique fitness businesses and retail brands. The agency says it also does unpaid work for causes including mental health, foster youth and housing.

Digital production and certification

Production work includes motion design and animation, wireframes and prototypes, and email design and development. A full-stack in-house development team and UX designers build and connect the digital touchpoints a client uses. Catalysis describes itself as a Certified Diverse Business with the NGLCC, and says a diverse workforce is central to how it looks at client problems, from its hiring to the way its teams reason about a brief.