San Diego creative shop Raindrop Agency made its mark with engaging long-form ads for products, including Dr. Squatch soaps and Manscaped. Now, the founders of that agency are spinning off a new venture dedicated to the hospitality and tourism industry.
Raindrop Brands has launched a dedicated creative marketing agency exclusively serving hotels, restaurants, arts and entertainment organizations, tourism attractions, lifestyle brands and more with Mari + Gold. Billed as a sister agency to Raindrop, the new shop will begin servicing many of Raindrop’s clients, in addition to other brands within the hospitality and tourism industries.
Clients include Jazzercise, Del Mar Racetrack, T S Restaurants, the San Diego Symphony, Hilton San Diego Bayfront, Brigantine Restaurants, Rubio’s and others.
Mari + Gold was founded by Raindrop CEO Jacques Spitzer, COO Adam Wagner and chief communications officer Carrie Jones. They wanted to deliver a tailored client experience through a team of experts who live and breathe the industries represented.
“In recent years, Raindrop has grown in the creative and performance space, partnering with more CPG, ecommerce and d-to-c brands that require an entirely different approach to partnership and creativity than our hospitality, tourism and lifestyle clients,” Jones told Adweek.
Jones added that recognizing the different needs of its clients presented the opportunity for dedicated leadership and a focus in how it served clients in the hospitality, tourism and lifestyle industries.
Mari + Gold will offer brand planning and development, website development, design and management, public relations, organic social media management, vertical video creation, influencer marketing, design, photography, email marketing and media planning and buying.
Raindrop tapped Nicole Bushnell to take the president role at Mari + Gold. She previously worked as a CMO at businesses that utilized Raindrop as its agency, so she was able to bring a client focus to the new role.
“As a client, you want to partner with people who truly care about your brand and our team at Mari + Gold embodies that,” Bushnell told Adweek. “Every team member joined this agency because they are passionate about these industries. It doesn’t matter the size, scale or where a client is in their journey, our team is prepared and eager to provide an agency experience and produce results that are tailor made for each brand.”
Bushnell added that the team of over 20 employees at Mari + Gold has decades of experience working with brands in the industries it represents.
The name of the new agency is a combination of terms. “Mari” is “sea” in Latin, which the agency states is powerful, calming, inviting and regal. “Gold” inspires feelings of sun, warmth, joy and luxury. The name Mari + Gold is meant to evoke vacation feelings and represent all things joyous, fun and sophisticated about its home city of San Diego and the industries the agency serves.