Elasticity is a St. Louis digital marketing agency focused on innovative tech startups. Unlike most agencies, they operate in part like a think tank by creating ideas for clients and companies independently, which may then be sold or licensed out.
Elasticity is also proud of their multicultural D&I (diversity and inclusion) group, which has gone deep into ways that embracing multiculturalism can transform marketing from the bottom up. “If you want to reach the hispanic market, don’t just translate your campaign into Spanish—actually use culturally relevant information to reach that particular audience,” says Cross. This extends to all kinds of communities and identities, from urban to Latinx to LGBTQIA+. “These are heavy tech digital users, and they’re very innovative in their purchase behavior.”
Elasticity is focused on tech startups, but in an expanded sense the term. “It could be what we traditionally think of as a tech startup, but it could also be a large company who wants to start up a new department or program,” says Brian Cross, a founding partner of Elasticity. “We work with that second group pretty heavily.”
For its clients, Elasticity does everything from digital paid media buys to influencer outreach to social media to content marketings, and, like any creative agency, they have writers, animators, video creators, and graphic designers on staff. What sets them apart is their knowledge of the digital space. Their specialization in digital media—raising awareness, getting traction, and expanding user acquisition—allows them to faster take their clients, as Cross says, from zero to sixty
Elasticity also doesn’t just wait around for clients to hire them. They’re always proactively brainstorming ideas that could be used for potential clients. This is the think tank model. They come up with the idea, develop it, pay for it, and then license it out to companies.
This way of working developed organically, says Cross, from all the surplus creativity bouncing around the organization. “If you think of what an agency is, there are a lot of creative ideas floating around,” says Cross. “We wanted to utilize that.
For example, says Cross, they worked with an e-sports company recently. “We created a whole new company with a whole new product, spun that up into a whole new entity, and a year later it got bought up in a deal with a larger company,” says Cross. “We do a little more than the typical agency with writers and graphic designers executing contracts at an hourly rate.”
Elasticity is proud of how they’ve stayed ahead of the curve. “Ten years ago social media was already big, but now you don’t have to just know social media, you have to understand that those platforms don’t let you reach your organic audiences the way they once did.” This means that “media buying” has transitioned—or expanded—from the traditional TV and radio to Google, Amazon, Snapchat, Facebook Marketplace.
Elasticity employs a data analytics team for this work, and that team uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced analytics to optimize ROAS (return on advertising spent). “I’m proud of that evolution,” says Cross. “Coming from a creative agency, this is real innovation.”
St. Louis itself has shaped the arc of Elasticity’s trajectory, too. “You can have an impact here that you couldn’t have in a bigger city,” says Cross. “We created a nonprofit called Rally St. Louis that uses crowdsourcing to come up with civic projects that bring pride to St. Louis, and uses crowdfunding to raise the money.” Partnering with private businesses, they installed a magic house at the airport, created a ‘food roof’ downtown, and installed a basketball court in a low-income neighborhood.
St. Louis is now considered one of the three best cities for accelerators and one of the best places to start a company, and Elasticity has played a major role in this. “A rising tides lifts all boats,” says Cross, explaining why they’ve been pushing St. Louis for the last ten years—and innovative startups in particular for the last five. “We’ve planted the seeds, we have the infrastructure, we have the awareness, and in the last year or two we’ve really started to see the fruits of all this labor. Now what happens?” says Cross. “I’m excited to see.”
To get in touch with Elasticity, visit goelastic.com.
