Midsize Agency Partner - Lafayette American

In today’s Midsize Match Up interview, we go to Detroit, Motor City, to talk with Toby Barlow , CEO  and Founder Lafayette American . This agency has been named by both ADWEEK and Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing agencies, so I’m excited to hear more.

Julia: Toby, I’m looking to give my readers insights to agencies who are great partners for Midsize firms and brands. What should everyone know about Lafayette American? 

Toby: Lafayette American is a 40-person, full-service independent advertising agency – proudly located in the vibrant and creative Core City neighborhood of Detroit.   After working as WPP’s global CCO on Ford for over a decade, I started Lafayette American in 2018 as CEO/CCO.

I believed I could curate the best people from the best agencies in Detroit and beyond to make an independent supergroup with nimbleness and savvy beyond what I was seeing at WPP.  

So, I partnered with Emily Siegel (President, formerly head of the Ford Content Studio), Ben Bator (Chief Innovation Officer, entrepreneur), Doug Patterson (ECD, former ECD – Ford), and Meg Jannott (Head of Design, formerly founding design team at Shinola) to start Lafayette American: an agency obsessed with the intersection of craft and efficacy, where our client’s problems are our problems, and where ambition meets ambition.  

Lafayette American is built to help brands take a brave leap into the future with clients who are ambitious enough to make it happen. From award-winning creative and design, sustainability platforms, innovative product launches, to complete rebrands of major institutions—we help our clients navigate complex marketing and business goals.  

We started with neighboring clients such as Owens Corning, BorgWarner, Detroit City Football Club and McClure’s Pickles. Since then, we’ve worked with global brands such as Amazon, Netflix, Chewy, Spotify, StockX, Ford, White Castle, Kodiak Cakes, Ram, Merrell, YouTube, Mazda, and many more.

 Today, we have a broad set of skills and services that we combine in a bespoke manner to empower every aspect of a client’s total brand experience: from creative, media, strategy, innovation, and production.  

We also have an embedded design studio Scorpion Rose Studio operating within Lafayette American. SRS taps into the resources of the larger agency while maintaining the intimacy, prowess, and collaborative spirit of a boutique design shop. 

Julia:  It sounds like a powerhouse team bringing big brand know-how to midsize companies.  The Scorpion Rose Studio A) seems like a great competitive advantage and B) Sounds like it might be a bad-ass tattoo name. Seriously, I love their work for the Kodiak brand!  What’s Lafayette American’s Secret Sauce when it comes to working with Midsize companies?

Toby:  Ambition. Plain and simple. Both for ourselves and for our clients. We partner with clients who have a similar drive and determination to pursue their goals, challenge the status quo, and strive for excellence. We keep our ambitions simple: we just want to be the absolute best and deliver the strongest possible results for our partners. It’s kinda corny and romantic, but that’s us. 

Ambition also means being undaunted and tirelessly imaginative. If we weren’t so charming, our indefatigable optimism would probably be a little irritating, like missionaries who can’t stop smiling. We believe the best partnerships are ones where we inspire and empower one another to bring our most powerful ideas forward, relentlessly pushing to the furthest reaches of the possible. We’ve found that the size of a company doesn’t correlate to the size of its ambition – and frankly, midsize shops are often the hungriest to break through. The good ones can see the top of the mountain and they want to get there. 

For us, it’s all about diving in with our clients, knowing more than our competition, turning over every rock, looking for ways to optimize every touch point, finding clever ways to be more efficient and impactful, trying to be perfect, and leaving the door open for surprising harmonies, kismet, and magic. 

Again, not to sound corny, but to us, this isn’t a job. It’s a mission.

Julia: Corny, inspired ambition, and a little kismet? Y’all are talking my love language! 😊 Can you share a case study or example of a successful campaign you have created with a Midsize client?

Toby: Sure! At over 123 years old, Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) is a beloved cultural institution in Toledo, Ohio, and a global leader in the museum field. It serves as a critical crossroads, commons, and cultural town square for a city that has seen radical shifts in the landscape over the past half-century. TMA has one of the richest art collections in the world – but, like so many others, is emerging from a complex history that was not always equally inclusive or accessible to the city’s whole population.

The museum's brand and visual identity hadn’t been touched for decades. As a new ambitious strategy to embrace a more inclusive vision and become the “Model Museum of the 21st Century” crystalized, it became clear that it was time to evolve this powerful legacy institution into a more inviting, lively, and future-facing brand.

What unfolded was a 13-month, wide-reaching brand refresh that started with a deep strategic discovery and repositioning and concluded with a holistic brand design overhaul that saw the new system enacted across their campus, sub-brands, promotional materials, digital properties (including a full website redesign), and an integrated launch campaign. 

We started with this insight: art is never static—it’s always dynamic. Art connects, enlightens, and emboldens. Just as a viewer’s perspective on a piece of art shifts as they cross the room, we wanted our work to continually drive a change in perspective – sparking new ideas about what art is, who artists are, and who art is for. We wanted to show that this transformative power of art lives at TMA for all of Toledo to enjoy.

Grounded in the campus’ “T-shaped” footprint and set in motion to reflect the continual reframing of art history and its emerging future, the new TMA logomark is a dynamic, multifaceted icon built for the digital age.

View full case study here:

Since launching the new brand identity, TMA has seen increases in year-over-year museum visitation of 20% and year-over-year exhibitions ticket sales have grown 140%.

In the same period, the integrated campaign that we created to launch the new identity and strategy has seen immense success with strong year-over-year growth in social impressions (+116%) and engagement (+105%), and around 7M total impressions.

“The new brand identity was born from TMA’s deep roots and propelled us into an uncertain yet exciting future. This is now a brand that’s ready for what’s next, a brand that can claim to be a leader.” – Gary Gonya, Director, Brand Strategy, TMA.

Julia:  And, this TMA work just won a 2024 Cannes Lion!! CONGRATS!  Toby, Before we wrap up, what advice would you give to Midsize companies looking to choose a partner?  

Toby:  It’s not too different from dating.

Find a partner that believes in you wholly and pushes you to be better.

Find a partner that’s small enough that you matter – but impactful enough that they can help execute the vision.

Find a partner willing to do the hard work and ask the right questions.

Find a partner that knows and embraces your values.

Find a partner that makes you feel larger than you are – and that your goals are more achievable than you thought.

Find a partner that will write you haikus and send you little gifts.

 And finally, find a partner that makes you laugh… you’re gonna be spending some time together. Might as well enjoy it.

Julia: I want a Haiku and little gifts!   I can see your team’s dedication to helping ambitious clients grow by taking a brave leap into a bigger future.  Midsize marketing teams -  I can officially certify Lafayette as a Midsize Match. 

For those wanting to talk directly to Toby, you can reach him at Toby@lafayetteamerican.com or visit their website.  Their website will give you a great idea of the breadth of their work and creativity. Take the minute to dive in. I love the opening video.