Barkley

Barkley Was a Beautiful Idea.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

— Buckminster Fuller

In 2010, I left New York and moved to Kansas City. People thought I was nuts. But Barkley had something that excited me, three things, in fact:

It had just lost its biggest client and half its business.

It had no strategy department.

It wasn’t afraid.

That last one mattered most. Because when most agencies would have curled up and died, Barkley was willing to try things. Real things. Strange things. Things that hadn’t been proven yet.

Over the next decade, we didn’t just try to make a better ad agency, we tried to reimagine what a creative company could be. What it should be.

I came to believe something that the marketing industrial complex still can’t quite wrap its arms around:

The brand is the business. And the business is the brand.

Not just logos and taglines. But people, policies, products, purpose. Inside and out.

The idea that a brand floats above the business like some separate balloon is not just outdated—it’s dangerous. People—real people, the ones who work for you, buy from you, believe in you—see everything you do as your brand. Because it is.

With that belief, a lot of caffeine, and a few very smart co-conspirators, we built a new model. Whole Brand Thinking™. A way of seeing and shaping business where everything is connected—strategy, story, sustainability, experience, internal culture, innovation. It worked. Really well.

We grew from a $25 million ad agency to a $100 million Whole Brand company.

We didn’t just make ads. We built brands from the inside out.

We created new business models. Helped companies grow from scratch, inventing new business models and new brands.

We became lead agency-of-record. And project partner.

We were named a Forrester top 5 lead agency, an AdAge A-List Standout, an Adweek Agency of the Year finalist. We were loud, scrappy, joyful. And it worked.

Because we asked the question that changes everything:

What does the brand need to grow?

Not: what’s the ad idea?

But: what’s the everything idea?

That was Barkley. A beautiful idea.

May the most whole brands win.