Spawn’s favorite question is “Why not?” Why not be the first agency to bring bus wraps to Alaska? Why not hold firm in negotiations to place local ads with streaming services? Why not launch an entirely new subsidiary when the options for promotional materials are limited and costly?

That’s how Spawn came to launch Bore Tide One Source, which offers high-quality printing and custom-designed swag options for the agency’s clients. In 2017, Spawn also created Hooligan, becoming Alaska’s first marketing firm with a dedicated account planning service. The Hooligan team focuses on conducting the primary research and strategy work upon which Spawn’s marketing campaigns are built.

The team doesn’t just ask questions and hold focus groups. “We’ve gone into people’s homes and done ethnographic research and shop-alongs,” Devine describes.

Hooligan, Norford is quick to point out, really grew out of Spawn’s desire to be a trusted partner to its clients.

“Our clients have pushed us to do what we do—being more than just their advertising arm but an extension of their teams,” she says. “When we look back at our body of work and then look at that Top 49ers list, we’re really proud of what we do to keep this work in Alaska and bring good work to those clients.”

Getting up close and personal is how Spawn unlocks the insights that guide its most noteworthy campaigns. When United Way of Anchorage set a goal for a 90 percent on-time graduation rate for high school students by 2020, Devine, who heads the Hooligan team, recalls that inspiration came from an hour-long conversation with an Anchorage School District teacher and social worker whose focus was students at the greatest risk of not graduating.

“She told us these heart-wrenching stories about how these kids face adversities you wouldn’t ever consider, but they would still be balancing [those challenges] with just wanting to be a kid,” she recalls.

Hooligan went directly to the students to better understand the challenges that kept them from achieving graduation. The conversations led them to create an iconic campaign, “Look Beyond the Labels,” that made use of striking imagery and fonts to invite viewers to empathize with each student’s situation rather than regard them as victims. The campaign is credited with a 22 percent increase in Anchorage’s graduation rate.

Spawn’s “scrappy” research methods have led to continued success on campaigns as varied as GCI’s launch of the iPhone 15, which emphasized the phone’s durability to appeal to Alaska’s outdoor-minded audience, and the Alaska Travel Industry Association’s recruitment campaign, an effort to draw workers into the tourism industry, post-COVID-19. For the latter campaign, Spawn faced fierce competition from other industries fighting to recruit from a small pool of people.

To hone an inspiring message, Hooligan dived deep into research, reading blogs by people who’d come to Alaska from the Lower 48 to do seasonal work. The discovery that seasonal workers valued their experience as “braggable” moments that made them more interesting as individuals led Spawn to create a successful digital and social media campaign.

“We love those types of challenges,” Devine shares. “You can’t talk about wages, you don’t have much time to put this together, and you don’t have an unlimited budget—that’s where we really shine.”

“The Spawn team has helped us test new ideas and shape campaigns that resonate with our audiences and drive results,” says Lael Oldmixon, executive director of the Education Trust of Alaska. The trust achieved a 150 percent increase in University of Alaska applicants, thanks to a Spawn direct-mail campaign that accompanied students through their high school years with interactive, relatable, and fun content that encouraged graduates to stay in Alaska.

Devine isn’t the only employee to come back to Spawn after a brief time working elsewhere. “We have a lot of ‘boomerang’ employees because there’s a little something special about Spawn,” she says.

“It’s unusual to see in advertising, which can be a bit of a grind,” adds Norford. “To have people who leave and come back is really a testament to the culture we’ve built here.”

A big driver of that culture is Spawn’s all-female leadership team. Led by King, Spawn executives regard “work/life balance” as more than a corporate slogan. Employees are encouraged to bring their infants, up to six months or crawling age, into the office so they don’t have to choose between parenthood and work. Spawn celebrates “summer Fridays,” which encourages employees to leave work early to capitalize on Alaska’s brief window of good weather. Another policy allows staff in good standing to work remotely for a month.

“Being a female-led agency influences the work style we have and our approach to our clients,” says Devine. “How can you challenge the norm? Part of the reason our campaigns are so good is because we listen to the people we’re trying to influence. We lead with empathy. We’re not just talking to them but really meeting them where they’re at.”

Fifty years of bringing marketing solutions to Alaska has taught the Spawn team that the only sure thing is change. In the past, the shift from print to digital transformed how agencies thought about reaching target audiences. The way in which people consume their media will, Devine predicts, continue to challenge Spawn’s ingenuity and ability to connect with audiences.

“Now you can create your own little bubble of personalized content,” she says. “It makes our job an ongoing challenge to make sure how we’re telling stories really connects with people the way they expect to be connected to.”

The increased use of generative AI may help better target those niche audiences. While the agency sees the evolution of technology as an opportunity and is exploring ways to use AI to assist workflow, Norford says there’s no substitute for the creativity of the people behind Spawn.

“We’re so well positioned [to capitalize on AI] because our drive for genuine human understanding complements the benefits of the advanced tech, allowing it to work harder for us,” she says.

Whatever the future brings, Devine emphasizes that it’s the clients Spawn has served for fifty years that have brought the agency to where it is today. In turn, those strong partnerships are how Spawn has stayed at the forefront of Alaska’s media landscape.

“When we look back at fifty years, we think about how much we have done to drive business and to really fuel our Alaska economy,” Norford remarks. She adds that, with the new Strategic America partnership, “There’s no reason a client would need to go to an agency outside of the state. We can offer anything now that an outside agency could, and more so, because we have that Alaska know-how.”