Identity’s Growth Featured by Crain’s Detroit Business

We live for telling compelling stories about our fantastic portfolio of clients. From media placements to social media strategies and everything in between, Identity’s growth is driven by our great work and the big, bold moves we make together on behalf of the clients we serve. 

We recently had the opportunity to tell our own story with Crain’s Detroit Business, highlighting the factors that inspired Identity’s growth in the past two years and what has led Identity to become one of the most recognized agencies in Michigan and the Midwest. 

The full story is available to subscribers of Crain’s Detroit Business, but we had to share some of the highlights of how Identity has become a force leading to national visibility and awareness of our clients.

Story Highlights

Some of the headlines from the Crain’s Detroit Business article include:

We’ve talked about our big goals for this year, but this direction is driven by our proven success. We had our best year in agency history in 2021, with 26% revenue growth.

Clients count on us to craft and execute strategic programs, and we do this through the Modern PR Mix. In the past year, we’ve delivered work for 120 clients, including 80-plus on retainer.

Our national portfolio includes industries we’ve worked in for our entire 24 year-history, with companies leading the way in real estate, hospitality and professional services. We partner with storied brands people know and love, including Bill Knapp’s, High Times, KSI, Michigan Association for Justice, Absopure, Motown Museum, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, La-Z-Boy and more. 

We pride ourselves on leaving a mark in the moments that matter—and our role is often driving the activity behind the scenes. In recent months we were part of two of the biggest national headline-making stories: We thoughtfully navigated media for the Oakland County Prosecutor in the immediate wake of the Oxford High School shooting tragedy. And, we revealed the seven new Little Debbie flavors from Hudsonville Ice Cream, which were sold in Walmart stores across the country.

None of this would be possible without our 30-person team. In an industry known for high turnover, our average team member tenure is 5.5 years, and every member of our leadership team has been with Identity for the past decade.

We also discussed our move to a new space in Birmingham—intended to better reflect our needs and the way we interact with clients in this new era of work.

We determined after really taking stock from our personnel, listening to what they learned, listened to optimal working conditions, and also realizing that connection with our clients and being in the field and more collaborative—those were the things that prompted us to look at a new dynamic for the agency going forward.
—Andrea Trapani, Managing Partner, Identity

Other Quotes in the Story 

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about communications and the business of what we do, it’s that clients were in a state of crisis and companies of all shapes and sizes were facing internal, external, a lot of communications chaos where they turn to us to lend a level of expertise and clarity. The way that we were working changed, and certainly we saw an increased appetite in the market for what we do simply because our clients were looking for a level of clarity as the world was changing around them.
—Andrea Trapani, Managing Partner, Identity

Regarding our work for the Oakland County Prosecutor:

Identity PR did a fantastic job. One of the biggest challenges the prosecutor’s office faced was managing a monumental case that Oakland County had never seen, while also having to navigate an onslaught of national and international media and managing the dignity and respect and balancing the respect that was due the families that have been so deeply impacted. They did a great job of setting an early framework.
—Alexis Wiley, Founder, Moment Strategies LLC

From a long-time peer in the industry:

One of the things I noticed early on was they excelled in a number of areas, but one that stood out was building a real estate practice beyond this market. They had a real niche working with clients who weren’t even based here and I found that pretty impressive. They were also one of the first agencies to focus on social media.
—Don Tanner, Founding Partner, Tanner Friedman

Identity’s growth is made possible by our commitment to thinking big and acting bold. Want to work with us? Get in touch.