Johnson & Sekin

An independent branding and advertising agency, Johnson & Sekin starts from the reason a brand exists. The agency is owned by its founders and answers to no holding company, so the decisions about a client's work rest with the people who do it.

Finding the reason a brand exists

Purpose-driven branding is the agency's core idea. Its view is that a brand's greater purpose is more important than telling stories, and that the purpose, once uncovered and shared, can turn customers into lifelong advocates. The agency's process starts by discovering that purpose, then turns it into the creative and the marketing actions that will carry it to the audience.

Campaigns, go-to-market plans and media

Johnson & Sekin works on a single project or builds a go-to-market plan from the ground up, and it can reimagine an entire brand where that is what a client needs. Creative campaigns are led by art directors, copywriters and designers, and digital and media planning carries the work to consumers online and in other channels. Its aim is making a company's growth move forward with purpose.

Restaurant chains, a university and consumer brands

The agency's portfolio includes work for restaurant chains such as Chili's and Fuzzy's Taco Shop, a barbecue restaurant named Pecan Lodge, a university, a light beer, a honey producer, and a powersports business. Each brief is treated on its own terms, so a beer, a university and a restaurant chain each receive a different strategy.

Cause marketing and charity events

Cause marketing covers fundraising events and awareness work for charities. The agency supports the American Heart Association's annual Cotes du Coeur event, a high-profile fundraiser for patients with heart disease and their families. It has also given visibility and donations to a camp for children with physical disabilities, and it helped build a chef competition in Dallas that raises money for multiple sclerosis research.

Listening before the work starts

The agency describes its approach as listening, learning and turning insight into action. Its founders have spent decades on award-winning campaigns for well-known brands, and that record forms the basis for its current method, which puts people and purpose first.

Direct service and no parent company

Clients who want an agency that treats their brand as a reason to exist, not only a set of ads, are the right fit. The agency works in a direct way, with its team of creative directors, account directors and digital specialists answering to the client rather than to a parent company.