Metal Creative Services

So what do you call an agency with no office space, no salaried employees, no company car and a conference “room” at the local Starbucks? Call it cost-effective, efficient and smart, for starters. When Marilé Borden founded Metal Creative in 2001, she had just left the “big agency” world and was working as a freelance Art Director. She was busy as ever helping clients who, with the recent dot-com bubble burst, suddenly didn’t have big agency budgets anymore. While the work was going great, she kept facing one small problem. The clients kept asking for more: “Do you know any great copywriters? Can you do media buying? Have you ever developed a Flash Demo?” So Marilé kept reaching out to friends and former colleagues and, before she knew it, she was “employing” a whole network of ex-agency pros—Creatives, Account Managers, Media Buyers and more—without having to put them on payroll or give them window offices. Today—more than a decade later—the team, the clients and the menu of services have expanded, but everything else works the same. Why does it continue to work? Because Metal Creative delivers the same product as the big agencies, without the big retainers and in half the time. And we can pull off those little jobs too: a last-minute invite, a quick logo for the back of a t-shirt, or copy for a text-only email. Whatever the scope of the project, Metal can assemble exactly—and only—the people you need to get it done. You need a team of 20 to create an integrated brand campaign with a less-than-ideal budget? You got it. You need a copywriter to punch up the back of a postcard by tomorrow? We’re on it. Now back to what to call this thing. Marilé chose to call it Metal. The “M” is for her, of course. The “et al.” is for the others. The great network of talent that has made Metal such a success story. As for you… feel free to call them an agency. A virtual agency. A communications firm. A team of savvy and motivated freelancers. It really doesn’t matter. As long as you call.