San Francisco is home to some of the most innovative and successful companies in history. You name it, Apple, Facebook, Google, all these companies had their humble beginnings in Silicon Valley. At this point, San Francisco has practically become sacred grounds. If you are trying to change the world with a fresh, transcending business, it only makes sense to come to this place to launch your company, and for the last 10+ years, this is exactly what has transpired.
Every day more and more companies come to San Francisco to chase their ambitious dreams to launch the next great business. With innovation and start-up culture rampant in San Francisco, it’s also the perfect opportunity for marketing agencies. Companies are popping up every day and looking for rampant growth. They rely on marketing agencies to help guide them to understand branding, messaging, positioning, and much more. This is all for the purpose of getting in front of as many new customers and users as possible.
As you can imagine, this opportunity for marketing agencies was never a secret, and at this moment in time, there are thousands of marketing agencies in San Francisco. But much like the tech companies that arise in the Bay Area, there are only a few marketing agencies that stand head and shoulders above the rest.
Here is our list of the top 23 marketing agencies in San Francisco:
- Mekanism
- Argonaut
- Edelman
- NoGood
- Cutwater
- Duncan Channon
- PR Hacker
- BarrettSF
- Goodby Silverstein & Partners
- Baker Street Advertising
- Venables Bell & Partners
- Pereira & O’Dell
- Gumas
- Cibo
- Colibri Digital Marketing
- MUH-TAY-ZIK HOF-FER
- Camp + King
- HUb
- MBE Group
- Media Cause
- Flickerbox
- Propane
- Michael Patrick Partners
1.Mekanism
Description: Mekanism is a full-service advertising agency that understands the art of storytelling. They work with brands to help them build strong loyalty and messaging. Though storytelling is the core of their competency, Mekanism incorporates a strategic blend in their work in order to help companies solve real business problems.
Year Founded: 2001
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing, Creative & Brand Strategy
Clients: Uber, Peloton, Coca-Cola
Case Studies:
2.Argonaut
Description: Argonaut is a full-service advertising agency that works with brands looking for reappraisal, revitalization, and reimagination to create brand comebacks and thrive. Fueled by curiosity, hope, and ambition, their agency values, they are committed to being the change. Their client portfolio includes some very successful brands such as the Honey Bunches of Oats, Fitbit, and Volkswagen.
Year Founded: 2013
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Advertising, Branding, Social Media, Design
Clients: Dodge, Sephora, Nerdwallet
Case Studies:
3.Edelman
Description: Located in the heart of San Francisco, Edelman is home to more than 200 experts. In order to produce strong, integrated campaigns that deliver real business results for iconic and emerging brands, they combine the very best talent and techniques across public relations, marketing, advertising, digital, creative, and research. They know the way to move consumers from indifference to action, working from technology start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, while helping to change brand perceptions through earned-centric, social-by-design initiatives.
Year Founded: 1952
Team Size: 200+ employees
Services: Public Relations, Digital Communications, Social Media
Clients: Samsung, Unilever, Novartis
Case Studies:
4.NoGood
Description: NoGood is a group of highly skilled data analysts, performance marketers, and creative strategists. Their diverse team comes together from a wide range of backgrounds and industries, which helps them bring unique insights to their clients. NoGood’s mantra is delivering marketing and business growth without the fluff. They love working with forward-thinking businesses and creating customized solutions to give their clients the most impact.
Year Founded: 2017
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Performance Marketing, Growth Hacking, Marketing Analytics
Clients: Amazon, P&G, Nike
Case Studies:
5.Cutwater
Description: Cutwater is an independently owned, creative, and media agency with offices in San Francisco and New York City. They are an experienced team and the creators of famous campaigns that move the needle. They believe in great storytelling, clients that have something to prove, the power of creativity, and always have a client-centric mindset. Their success is an outcome of integrated marketing plans focused on strategy, creative breakthroughs, and in-house media that enable them to evaluate the correct combination of brand and performance work based on the goals and KPIs of the client.
Year Founded: 2007
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Brand Strategy, Search & Performance Marketing, Media Planning & Buying
Clients: Peet’s Coffee, Axos Bank, Unison
Case Studies:
6.Duncan Channon
Description: Duncan Channon is a top advertising agency with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles that builds a distinct brand for its clients using digital and traditional methodologies. A four-time Ad Agency of the Year, they partner with companies to discover their unique positioning and uncover their full potential. They help brands achieve their goals with the right strategy, brand identity, design, and more.
Year Founded: 1990
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Strategy, Media, Creative
Clients: Udemy, Rakuten, Grubhub
Case Studies:
7.PR Hacker
Description: PR Hacker is a startup agency that specialized in marketing, experiential events, and brand strategy for public relations, video production, influencer marketing, and social media. It is located in the heart of the tech scene, in SoMa. They can deliver holistic marketing services for all types of companies, teaming up with a diverse network of professionals. Their growth-focused and data-driven mindset will uncover marketing opportunities, design an effective marketing plan, and optimize your campaigns to achieve your brand’s full potential.
Year Founded: 2013
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: PR & Media Relations, Social Media, Influencer Marketing
Clients: Natural Balance Pet Foods, Ambronite, CrowdMed
Case Studies:
8.BarretSF
Description: Founded in 2012, Barret SF is a San Francisco-based advertising agency that combines strategic thinking with creative design to provide visual advertisements to clients. They have been recognized by Ad Age as the West Coast Small Agency of the Year. They believe that a thoughtful strategy and strong creative thinking will win every time, and they provide a range of creative production for their clients, always having a hard shell to deal with the relentless adversity and competition of today’s marketing environment.
Year Founded: 2012
Team Size:
Services: Digital & Creative Services, Social Media, Graphic Design
Clients: Walmart, Chime, XFL
Case Studies:
9.Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Description: Goodby Silverstein & Partners is a full-service advertising agency with a wide range of expertise, including creative, design, brand strategy, research and analytics, communication/media strategy, and production. They are an innovative agency using a people-centric approach in everything that they do. Their mission through “mass intimacy” is to create experiences that reach billions but seem to only speak to one.
Year Founded: 1983
Services: Brand Strategy, Creative Development/Execution, Production
Clients: Cheetos, Adobe, BMW
Case Studies:
10.Baker Street Advertising
Description: Baker Street is a full-service, integrated advertising, brand management, and marketing agency in San Francisco. It is the merger of an award-winning ad agency and innovative consumer research, data analytics, and brand management firm. Named after the office address of Sherlock Holmes, they rejoice in producing dramatic content focused on the discovery of hidden truths that can unblock the potential of any brand.
Year Founded: 1982
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Advertising & Digital Content, Digital Media Strategy & Buying, Branding, Public Relations
Clients: Sun-Maid, Northern California Honda Dealers, San Francisco Giants
Case Studies:
11.Venables Bell & Partners
Description: Venables Bell & Partner is a globally known and independent San Francisco advertising agency tapping into the social energy of their culture, people, and brands to create socially native ideas at the speed of the newsfeed. With profitable growth every year, their challenger approach has attracted blue-chip brands like PlayStation, Blue Moon, Intel, and others to their roster. In addition to their full-service offering, they are home to VBP Orange, a customer experience consultancy, and Lumberyard, a content production facility.
Year Founded: 2001
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Brand Strategy, Performance Marketing, Media Planning/Buying
Clients: Chipotle, REI, Sheraton
Case Studies:
12.Pereira O’Dell
Description: Pereira O’Dell is an agency that holds strong values. The agency has digital & tech-forward thinking, however, they still honor and celebrate old traditions of advertising. Their capabilities extend far and wide into multiple services. The interesting thing about this agency is the fact they understand the balance that is needed between delivering what the audience wants and business results.
Year Founded: 2008
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Marketing, Branding, Advertising
Clients: MINI, Adobe, Stella Artois
Case Studies:
13.Gumas
Description: Gumas is a full-service marketing agency specializing in integrated branding, advertising, and digital marketing. They have created many award-winning campaigns for brands, and their unique challenger brand process helps companies discover their true brand identity and positioning. All their work is created to help clients grow their business.
Year Founded: 1984
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Challenger Brand Marketing, Integrated Media Strategies, Branding & Messaging Strategies
Clients: Varian Medical, Monaghan Medical, KeyPoint Credit Union
Case Studies:
14.Cibo
Description: At Cibo, they are pioneers in brand & customer experience. Since its inception, Cibo has built innovative solutions for enterprises and early-stage start-ups. Their team of data analysts, developers, strategists, and designers all believe in delivering the absolute best customer experience on the web. They want to execute work that will make customers happy.
Year Founded: 2010
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Digital Marketing, Branding, Web Platform Development
Clients: Salesforce, Subaru, Lenovo
Case Studies:
15.Colibri Digital Marketing
Description: Colibri Digital Marketing represents businesses of all sizes. Developed to meet the digital marketing needs of visionary organizations, it is the first and only full-service digital marketing agency certified by B Corp. in San Francisco. They are leaders in forward-thinking digital marketing, reflecting the ever-increasing need for business leadership that promoted and defends individuals, the planet, and profit. Through their emphasis on triple-bottom-line results, their forward-thinking and quality-driven use of digital marketing best practices, their goal is to address the digital marketing needs of innovative brands and non-profit organizations.
Year Founded: 2012
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Advertising, Analytics, Content Marketing
Clients: Ν/Α
Case Studies:
- A Bay Area Financial Services Company Transforms its Digital Marketing
- A Bay Area Educational Institution Increases Their Brand Reach
16.MUH-TAY-ZIK HOF-FER
Description: MUH-TAY-ZIK / HOF-FER is a San Francisco advertising agency. The agency’s uniqueness is not just in its name. The agency is driven by creativity, innovation, and inspiration. They want to create exceptional work on behalf of clients. Services include brand positioning, customer journey mapping, and much more.
Year Founded: 2010
Team Size: 51-200 employees
Services: Viral Marketing, Digital Advertising, Social Media
Clients: Staples, AAA, Intel
Case Studies:
17.Camp + King
Description: This agency makes companies and brands they work with conversation-worthy. Their process starts by researching insights that inspire talk-worthy ideas. Then they put together a strategy that helps these ideas spread. Camp and King combine brand storytelling with expertise in digital, social, and content development. Their capabilities extend to advertising, branding, social, and content.
Year Founded: 2011
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Social Marketing, Creative, Strategic Messaging
Clients: Del Taco, UGG, Insurgent Brands
Case Studies:
18.HUb
Description: HUb currently has a team of over 20 people. The team is a huge network of senior creative specialists across every discipline. The agency has strong strategy methods and wins a lot of creative awards for their video content. The agency has worked across some noteworthy clients including Oculus, Blue Cross, Linkedin, and many others.
Year Founded: 2002
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Advertising, Media Buying, Branding
Clients: Oculus, Sephora, LinkedIn
Case Studies:
19.MBE Group
Description: The Marx Buscemi Eisbrenner Group is a full-service marketing agency focused on the automotive, mobility, trucking, technology, and consumer goods industries. MBE Group provides strategic marketing communications programs to help B2B and B2C clients boost revenue, gain market share, and expand their businesses. Their experienced team partners with clients to help them stay ahead of the competition and achieve their business goals.
Year Founded: 2019
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Crisis Communications, Digital Advertising, Web & Creative Design
Clients: Philips, Armorlite, Motors Liquidation Company
Case Studies:
20.Media Cause
Description: Media Cause is a mission-driven marketing agency that helps nonprofits companies. Their belief in helping nonprofits, philanthropists, advocates, and educators, means their approach to marketing is a little different from other agencies. Media Cause measures success for their nonprofit client by certain milestones and results including supporter engagement, actions taken, lives changed, etc.
Year Founded: 2010
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Social Media Strategy, Fundraising, SEM
Clients: Bay Area Discovery Museum, Children’s Discovery Museum, Futures Without Violence
Case Studies:
21.Flickerbox
Description: Flickerbox partners with companies to help them grow for the long-term. Clients appreciate their work because the agency brings forth a fresh, engaging, and professional digital presence. Their team helps companies create a strong connection between the brand and customer base. This is through good planning, thoughtful content, engaging visuals, smart development, and regular testing and iteration.
Year Founded: 1999
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Interactive Marketing, Design, Website Development
Clients: Okta, Nylas, Yahoo
Case Studies:
22.Propane
Description: Propane is a digital experience and platform agency. For every client, they can construct a digital roadmap called “Digital Business Engine Platform” that includes the 5 following key solutions: Generate Interest, Create Distinction, Drive Conversion, Build Loyalty, and Increase Efficiency. A fun fact about them is that they also worked on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) for Kaiser Permanente!
Year Founded: 2003
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Digital Strategy, Market Research, Brand Strategy
Clients: Clarisonic, San Francisco Symphony, McKesson
Case Studies:
23. Michael Patrick Partners
Description: Michael Patrick Partners is a creative agency best known for developing the E*TRADE identity. Their expertise includes brand development, brand strategy, design, and marketing campaigns applied to differentiate every state of a business’s life cycle. Their experience speaks from the 500+ creative industry awards that they have received throughout the years.
Year Founded: 1980
Team Size: 11-50 employees
Services: Brand Development, Digital Marketing, Website Design
Clients: Standford University, Apple, Visa
Case Studies:
San Francisco is certainly a major hub for all kinds of marketing agencies that work with an array of different clients. Deciding to hire a marketing agency is easy, while the hard part is deciding which agency to hire. After reading this blog, we hope that we have given you a headstart to start looking into the perfect one that will meet all your business’s needs and goals.
great post!!!!!!
wonderful.
fantastic post.