Who We Are
GKV is a full-service integrated communications agency that has been changing and evolving for 40 years. We’re good, smart people who can do and will do whatever it takes for challenger brands to succeed.
We create thousands of pieces of social and digital content every year in-house. Plus, awarding-winning TV and radio and direct mail.
Working with challenger brands means always challenging ourselves to find new and more effective ways to grow our clients’ businesses and brands.
GKV is a challenger brand agency.
We are from a challenger brand town, Baltimore, and our clients are challenger brands. Our culture is to always challenge each other and the status quo to do things better. We’re independent, we are not part of a big holding company, so we decide our own fate.
That independence attracts some great talented staff from big organizations that are tired of bureaucracy, and the same for our clients. Our clients want nimble. Our clients appreciate that the people they work with everyday have at least as much experience as they do. We “over-service”. We can’t help it. We know our clients.
We care about them as people in addition to their business goals. How can you not, when you spend as much time together as we do. We work REALLY hard to make our clients happy – we LISTEN to them, establish trust and relationships, guide them in the right direction and do what it takes to make them successful.
Many of us have worked together for many years, so we work together as a team to solve problems quickly, stay positive and make it happen. There really are not a lot of challenges we aren’t able to overcome. A lot of agencies out there deliver good work… we do that PLUS our clients LIKE us. We have many repeat clients.
Challenger Brands
Let’s talk about challenger brands and their leaders, because challenger brands need challenger brand leaders and challenger brand partners to win. What we have learned over our 40 years is that the way challenger brands behave in the marketplace decides their future success or failure.
Symbols of re-evaluation
Challenger brands need to get noticed. They won’t get noticed because of the massive amounts of money they spend (because they don’t typically spend massive amounts of money). They get noticed by offering something different than the category leader. No navel gazing here. Keep it simple, important and relevant, otherwise the consumer will follow their normal autopilot behavior and reach right past your brand for the category leader.
Like a flock of seagulls singing ‘A Flock Of Seagulls’ for the ridiculously good Cape Cod Chips.
Emotional connection
Challenger Brands live on love. They don’t rely strictly on the rationale benefits or the badge value of category leaders. They are more relevant. They get the real you. You like having them as a friend, because you can rely on them, and because of that, you introduce them to your friends. That’s how challenger brands grow!
Sort of like how PANDORA Jewelry helped men give gifts that actually seemed like they listened.
Brand Inside
Challenger Brands are true through and through. Your every interaction with them, a customer service experience, the tone of voice of an ad, their social feed… they all come from the same place. The same heart and head.
And that’s especially important, and especially unique when it is the case with your cable provider.
Sacrifice
This is the glue that holds everything together. You can’t do the other three without this fourth behavior. You need to be willing to not do things, in order to focus on what you do really well.
If you like what you see and think we might be a good fit for you and your brand,
call us or send us a note.
We’re easy to talk to.
We’re good listeners.
