Capsule Goes Global
With an impressive roster of clients globally, Capsule is set to announce new offices in Portland, Los Angeles, Raleigh, Miami, Chicago, Steamboat Springs, New York, Grand Rapids, Seattle and our international locations, Munich, Germany, Shibuya, Japan, and Dublin, Ireland.
Our worldwide headquarters in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis is where people typically clock in and do great work for clients. But we find our minds all over the world traveling for research, presentations and strategy sessions.
So, we’re “opening offices” in the cities where we have clients or will be visiting in the next six months. This is a significant investment, but we’re confident it will pay dividends for years to come.
Not exactly.
The perception that you’re larger than you really are is certainly appealing, but what happens when a client finds out you’ve opened an office in New York with one employee in a co-working space?
A “dark arts” teacher from years ago had "New York, Minneapolis, London" on her business card, near the bottom, six point type. When asked she would say, “those are my favorite cities.” She also admitted, when someone didn’t ask they likely concluded she indeed had offices in those cities.
The Mad Men Era led to a globalization of brands and agencies, so it was appealing to have offices all over the world. It also signaled you had cultural knowledge, global reach and a thriving agency. But, sometimes—too many times—it was all just a façade and like many things in the Age of Advertising, a blatant lie.
Why are firms in the creative field still doing this? Do we really want to try to give the impression we have offices where we really just have a desk, chair, iPhone, Macbook Pro and wireless connection?
If that’s the deal, then in each city visit, we will open an office. It will be as simple as opening a laptop at a coffee shop. Yes, you may say, that’s not opening an office, but let’s be honest, it is just a few steps short of what is being done already.
We’re simply pealing away the unspoken truth. (Thanks to Steven Fahrenholtz for this tidbit.)
In the next six months Capsule will have twelve new offices all over the world, where we’ll be meeting with clients. We’ll be sure to share photos (playing ping pong, doing research, writing, designing, creative exercises, etc). You may also see the hashtag, #OfficeTransparency when we happen to flip open a laptop and tweet something.
After we’ve set up all these global offices, our question to you is: Do clients notice, care or see right through it?