Kingston Marketing Group

Built for brands with an entrepreneurial streak, Kingston Marketing Group offers integrated marketing and communications consulting. Before founding it, the two co-founders had built careers at Starbucks, Zillow and T-Mobile, and they set up the firm to build the agency they had wished for. The team is small and experienced, and its method starts with listening to the company and to its customers, so that the message and the market plan feel authentic.

Six areas of brand, communications and marketing work

Brand strategy work includes positioning, architecture, and how a brand is expressed and activated, preceded by research into customers and their journeys. Strategic communications spans media relations, data-led work, financial and corporate messaging, crisis handling, public affairs and staff communications. Integrated marketing for consumers and businesses covers the product side, paid performance work, lead creation, and the planning of channels, budgets and a shared calendar.

Social media, content and direct-to-consumer strategy

Social media and content work covers social content planning, SEO that runs alongside content strategy, and the distribution of what gets published. E-commerce and direct-to-consumer work audits an online store, tunes the mix of sales channels and sets out plans for acquiring and keeping customers, with content and promotion planned alongside.

Strategic operations on an interim basis

The firm calls one of its services a chief officer in a box. It covers the organizing of teams, hiring, operating plans and interim leadership, for clients that need senior help without a full-time executive hire. The firm says this suits companies that are ready to scale but not yet ready to hire a chief marketing or chief communications officer.

Why the plans bring disciplines together

The firm holds that brands gain strength by avoiding silos. Its integrated plans combine PR, corporate messaging and data work with digital marketing strategy, customer insight and persona building, social media planning, customer lifecycle and journey mapping, and strategy grounded in insight.

Current case studies under the Mother Bear name

Under the Mother Bear name, the agency now positions its work for scaling brands, with work in strategic marketing, media relations and creative and digital production. Its current work includes repositioning the pet care brand Rover, making the job site Indeed's data and economists more visible in the industry, and helping the organic beef producer Verde Farms sell its beef through Amazon Fresh.