About Us
Swell is an independent creative and marketing agency built for social justice. Since 2012, we have led the policy, development, messaging and digital organizing to create housing and services for the unhoused, enact a minimum wage increase across California, ensure better union contracts for service workers and permanently funnel billions of taxpayer dollars into water quality and sustainability.
Most recently, we quarterbacked the policy and organizing efforts to re-balance budgets away from the carceral system and towards services for communities and individuals that need it most.
We’re 10 years in and we’re just getting started.
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Discovery
We Get Smart
It starts with our Intelligence team: a group of PhDs, policy wonks, and big brains who bring a human touch to research. We dig deep, find your audience, and identify a message that will motivate action.
Discovery Audit
We conduct an extensive audit of the current state of technology, brand, experience, and messaging.
Stakeholder Insights
Through interviews with internal and external stakeholders, we identify key insights and viewpoints.
Audiences & Personas
We identify our audiences and bring them to life through personas, highlighting the who and the how.
Landscape Analysis
We look far and wide and highlight examples of effective techniques from inside and outside your sector.
Concept & Strategy
We Dream
With research in hand, we dream about a future where our theory of change is possible. Then we create big, bold campaign ideas that turn those dreams into reality. We test, refine and optimize to reach more audiences every day, twenty-four hours a day.
Strategic Planning
Based on our discovery, we make sure our clients are aiming for the right targets and create a plan to help them achieve their goals.
Identity Development
Whether a brand refresh or an all-encompassing campaign, we create a design system that communicates clearly and inspires action.
Messaging & Creative
Cliches don't convert. We build foundational guidelines for language that is flexible, authentic, disciplined, and differentiated.
Brand Experience
From URL to IRL, our strategic planning always starts with the user and their needs.
Creative, Design & Development
We Collaborate
We believe the cause is more important than any individual client, and when we find clients that believe in change as much as we do, amazing things happen. That’s why we work side-by-side with our clients to design, develop and deliver strategies that move the dial and change the narrative. Whatever it takes to create the impact we seek, we will do it.
Digital Design & Development
Our team builds the right amount of tech to amplify our clients' messages and drive action.
Campaign & Brand Collateral
We supplement our clients' digital presence and elevate their message by creating physical pieces, out of home advertising and IRL experiences.
Photography, Video & Animation
Together, we create motion assets that have utility throughout the life of our clients' campaigns from short video to full documentary.
Digital & Traditional Advertising
Our advertising efforts both take advantage of hyper-targeted digital advertising and traditional out-of-home placements.
Distribution & Engagement
We Build Community
Change work is mindful work and that means connecting with people, communities and emotions. We build community with transparency, accountability and authority. Match that with urgency and need, and strong communities develop. We take these new communities and drive them to action.
Social Media Management
We develop a strong voice on each platform with special attention to the audiences' needs.
SMS, Email, & Newsletters
We segment the right message to the right audience at the right time-driving results, engagement, and response.
Digital Fundraising
From financially sustaining an organization to providing emergency assistance to communities in crisis, we help to raise money from your audience to achieve your goals.
Brand & Reputation
Our messaging, content and creative is the backbone to reaching key opinion formers and hard-to-reach audiences.
Audience Inclusivity
We strive for our deliverables to be multilingual, ADA compliant, culturally competent, and accessible to all.
Metrics & Optimization
We Go the Distance
We’re not finished until the job is done and the job isn’t done until we know the real results of the work. Our intelligence, ads and analytic teams work together to track and measure the impact along the entire journey. Making sure that people are taking meaningful actions to advance the cause and change the conversation.
Ads & Social Reporting
Our clients receive regular monthly reports that highlight the performance of campaigns across channels.
Creative Optimization
We tailor your message and creative based on performance and testing to amplify your results.
Digital Platform Optimization
Using analytical insights, we continue to develop your digital platforms and respond to the unique needs of your users.