A local marketing and creative company with a 20-year history in Greater Cincinnati is doubling its footprint in the region with a new office space, and said it plans to hire more staff after experiencing double-digit growth in 2020.
Creatives On Call, a marketing consultancy headquartered in St. Louis but with a long-time footprint in Blue Ash, has moved into new office space in the Cincinnati suburb.
The consultancy, which works with Fortune 500 companies and up, recently completed renovations at 4420 Cooper Road, across from the Blue Ash Recreation Center. At 4,677 square feet, the office is twice the size of its former home on nearby Cooper Road, and offers a more conducive environment for its staff and extensive network of freelance workers.
April Koenig, Creatives On Call’s Cincinnati-based founder and CEO, said it’s long been her goal to build a shared office like this: a place for workers, artists and creatives to go and grab coffee in a more traditional setting without the financial commitment of a formal co-working space.
Creatives On Call has a staff of 13, but a national network of 15,000 contracted associates – and is hiring. The company plans to increase staff 40% after experiencing a more than 38% increase in revenue company-wide in 2020.
The company has moved all its staff into the office and plans to open up to contracted creatives as soon as Covid restrictions allow.
“I’ve dreamed of having a community space, where I can walk out of my office, and people are buzzing around, and I can soak up the creativity,” Koenig said in a release.
Koenig launched Creatives On Call in 1995 in St. Louis, and the company opened its Blue Ash office in 2000. It offers strategic and advisory services, design and marketing, content creation and management for clients in the B2B and B2C space. It declined to name those clients. Creatives On Call also has an office in south Florida.
Creatives On Call’s growth last year was partially due to Covid-19 and increased remote work, Koenig said. Many companies hired consultants, for example, for short-term projects that didn’t require them to pay for full-time benefits and salary. Koenig said she expects another 30% increase in revenue in 2021.
Koenig said she wanted the space to have a clean and modern aesthetic with lots of tables and chairs. Creatives On Call staff members maintain individual offices in the back.
Overall, renovation costs totaled $400,000, Kathryn Sturm, marketing manager, told me. Creatives On Call worked with Blue Ash’s OstermanCron for the office furnishings; Plant Trolley helped with greenery; and Linda Glaser of Intra Design Inc. served as the interior design consultant for the project. Cincinnati’s First Choice Coffee Services also assisted in the buildout of the refreshment area.
Once deemed safe, Creatives On Call plans to host monthly coffee-based networking events, among other gatherings, like lunch and learn webinars, freelancer office parties, a virtual art gallery and more. Koenig said it was important for the company to remain in Blue Ash because of the city’s strong community and business environment and centralized location.
“We have been very successful over the past four years, so this new space is my way of giving back to the community and thanking all our creatives and staff for bringing us to where we are today,” she said.
