Ann Arbor creative agency Phire Group adds staff, expands offices in recent growth spurt

Phire Group, an Ann Arbor branding and creative agency, is celebrating growth on multiple fronts as it closes out 2017.

The company hired new digital creative director Mike Gatto and three other employees this year, bringing the agency's total headcount to 26. Phire Group also recently expanded from occupying just the first floor of 111 Miller Ave. in Ann Arbor to filling the entire two-story building.

Owner and principal Jim Hume says his philosophy since the agency's founding in 2004 has been to build an "anti-agency" that looks beyond the traditional methods of many public relations and marketing firms.

"Many agencies and marketing firms come to a client with a specific thought in mind of how they're going to spend the client's money on traditional media," Hume says. "I've been more about the mindset of building community, building a culture, and creating brands that will last."

Hume says Phire Group spends a lot of time talking to employees in the company as well as clients and competitors in the industry to collaboratively come up with "truly authentic stories that build on the best of organizations, and build brands around that."

Putting those philosophies about branding into practice has led to slow but steady growth.

"We've continued to grow every year since our inception," Hume says. "We've really grown in both capabilities as well as the talent level. We're aiming to be not just the top agency in town, but the top agency in the Midwest."

Hume says the agency already has "the strongest design team around," but believes that Gatto, who has 20 years of experience working at digital design firm Perficient, will take the firm to the next level, focusing even more on the digital side of branding and making Phire Group a viable choice for large, national brands.

Phire Group already services large national clients such as Masco and local clients such as the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. The agency is also seeing more interest from large companies with large footprints across the globe, Hume says.

"We're starting to see tremendous growth nationally and even internationally," Hume says. "We consider ourselves transformational in terms of what we can do for clients, whether that's finding breakthroughs for sustainable, community-owned solutions to problems or elevating companies that are doing a good job and could be doing a great job."
 

This piece is part of a series highlighting local business growth in the Ann Arbor area. It is supported by Ann Arbor SPARK.