Beth Newton

Alpha | Bravo specializes in service-based brands — which is kind of a niche that doesn’t get a lot of glamour. What made you want to plant your flag there instead of chasing the flashier product-brand work?

I started my career in product-based marketing working with brands like Hallmark Cards, Brown Shoe and A-B… but when I started freelancing on the side, my clients were all service-based. I landed at Scorch in 2014, and added tech and SaaS. Marketing for service brands is more challenging, and in that way, more rewarding for me. The sales cycle is longer, the price points are higher, and buyer decisions are built on trust rather than impulse. Subscription-based services took off and by that time, I had a lot of experience – and some success – under my belt. When Aaron and I launched alpha | BRAVO we wanted to specialize, but there was no clear industry – we were working with everything from tech and SaaS to plumbing and HVAC. The one thing they all had in common was that they were service-based.

You’re running a four-person shop in St. Louis, which means you’re probably doing twelve people’s jobs on any given Tuesday. What’s the thing that genuinely excites you about that, and what’s the thing you’d outsource to a robot tomorrow if you could?

We were a 4-person shop right up until COVID when we pivoted to remote work with the rest of the world, and switched our employees to contractors. Since then, it’s largely been just the two of us (cue the music), and yes, 12 people’s jobs is a pretty accurate description! This may sound strange, but I wouldn’t outsource a thing. Doing it all gives me real clarity into what’s happening in our clients’ businesses and our own. Doing the work keeps me in the trenches and up to speed. Creating the SOWs and the invoices keeps me aware of our books, and building the monthly and quarterly reports is the best way I know how to craft strategies built from real data. And that is what genuinely excites me!

The agency is award-winning — congrats, first of all — but be honest: how much do awards actually matter to you versus just doing work that moves the needle for a client?

The “right” answer here is of course that doing the work that moves the needle for clients is all that matters. And that’s mostly true. It’s also what I love about working with startups and small-mid size companies. When a client awards us a budget, they’re handing us real money they’ve earned, and I feel a deep sense of responsibility to build something successful. Here’s the “but”: the awards are acknowledgment of that responsibility and our success in helping them grow their business. As a small business owner, that means a lot to me.

St. Louis has a creative community that kind of flies under the radar nationally. Do you think that’s a chip-on-the-shoulder advantage, or is there something the city needs to fix about how it sees itself?

That’s a great question. It’s definitely both.

There’s a real advantage to being here. Brands in larger markets often assume they can save money working with a Midwestern agency, which can open doors that might otherwise be closed.

But the flip side is that we sometimes buy into that narrative ourselves. There’s an incredible amount of talent in St. Louis, but we have a tendency to undervalue our work and price it that way. In reality, I’d put the quality of work coming out of this city up against any major market.

So yes I think St. Louis could use a little more swagger.

You named the agency Alpha | Bravo — military phonetic alphabet, built-in sense of order and precision. Does that reflect how you actually run the place, or is the day-to-day a lot more chaotic than the name implies?

Oh, if only! With just two of us, it’s never too chaotic, but I wouldn’t use the word “precise”. The phonetic alphabet was created to ensure clear communications regardless of location, language, accent, radio static, etc. And what we do really boils down to that: ensuring crystal clear communication between brands and their audiences, regardless of channel: social, CTV, web, etc. Also, alpha = Aaron, BRAVO = Beth. So there’s that. : )