Independent advertising agency · Chicago
Hargrove Stone is an independent advertising agency in Chicago. We build brands for companies that need their marketing to show up in revenue, and we measure ourselves the same way.
Featured: “Banking with neighbors” key visualConcept · fictional client
Recognition
Placeholder slots. Add verified effectiveness and craft awards only.
Regional bank
A 40-branch community bank was losing younger customers to app-only banks. We rebuilt the brand around the thing an app cannot offer: people who live on your street.
CPG / beverage
A craft sparkling water entering two new states with a small budget and a lot of shelf competition. The campaign tied each flavor to the local forecast.
Healthcare network
An urgent-care chain had a good online check-in tool that few patients knew about. We made the waiting room the villain and kept every claim compliance-ready.
Results reflect specific campaigns and are not a guarantee of future performance.
What we believe
Mid-market companies do not have money to spend on work that only looks good in a portfolio. Every campaign we make starts with a business number and ends with a report on it.
We keep the team small, the partners close and the plan in one document, so strategy, creative and media all pull the same way.
Read the full manifesto →Capabilities
Positioning, brand architecture and messaging, grounded in customer research.
Campaigns across TV, CTV, digital, social, OOH and print.
Integrated plans with one budget view across every channel.
In-house video, photo and digital production, sized for real budgets.
Partner-led
Founding Partner, Strategy
Founding Partner, Creative
Founding Partner, Media
Tell us what needs to move: accounts, store velocity, appointments, applications. A partner will reply within one business day.
Start a conversationWork
Hover a title to preview the poster. Select any row to open the summary and, where one is published, the full case.
Brand refresh and CTV plus social campaign for a 40-branch community bank losing younger customers to neobanks.
+22% new checking accounts · +9 pts unaided awareness
Read the caseTwo-state launch across OOH, CTV and creators, with a retail activation built around the local forecast.
1,200 new retail doors · +37% velocity in new stores
Read the caseIntegrated campaign that made online check-in the default, with every claim reviewed by the client's compliance team.
+48% online check-ins · −12% wait-room time
Read the caseBrand platform for a regional outdoor retailer competing with national chains on expertise instead of price.
Full case study available on request.
Print and social campaign for a solid-wood furniture maker, built to slow shoppers down and bring them into the showroom.
Full case study available on request.
Membership drive that explained cooperative ownership in one image: the people standing in line with you own the place too.
Case study in preparation.
All client names shown in this template are fictional. Work created by our partners at previous agencies is labeled and shown with permission. Results reflect specific campaigns and are not a guarantee of future performance.
The bank had strong service scores and a loyal base over 50, but new checking accounts from customers under 35 had been falling for three years. Younger customers saw it as their parents' bank and opened accounts with app-only competitors in minutes.
The ask: grow new checking accounts among 25 to 40 year olds without alienating the existing base, and do it on a mid-market budget.
Neobanks win on speed. They cannot compete on people. We built the platform around the bankers themselves: real employees who live in the same neighborhoods as their customers, answer the phone on the first ring and are open on Saturdays.
The identity refresh kept the heritage wordmark and added a warmer palette, a house-row motif and a plain-spoken tone. CTV spots followed a single branch through a week. Social turned staff into recurring characters.
Budget shares are illustrative. One plan, one budget view: every channel mapped to the stage of the decision it serves.
Results reflect specific campaigns and are not a guarantee of future performance.
Regulated category. All bank creative carries the required Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender notices, reviewed against FDIC advertising rules before release.
Fieldnote had won its home market with a loyal following and was entering two new states. Distribution was secured, but new stores would drop the brand within two quarters if it did not move off the shelf.
The measure that mattered was velocity: units per store per week in the new doors.
Every flavor was named for a kind of day. So we let the weather sell it. Digital OOH near grocery stores swapped the featured flavor based on the local forecast, creators posted the “weather report” each morning, and in-store displays carried the same daily call.
One idea, built for the shelf, carried through every channel with the same line.
Budget shares are illustrative. Weight was concentrated within a short drive of new retail doors.
Results reflect specific campaigns and are not a guarantee of future performance.
Creator disclosure. All creator content carried clear paid-partnership disclosure in line with FTC Endorsement Guides.
The network had invested in online check-in, yet most patients still walked in and waited. Awareness of the feature was low, and busy clinics lost patients who gave up in the waiting room.
The goal was simple to state: more online check-ins, shorter waits, and no compliance surprises.
Nobody likes a waiting room. The campaign cast it as the thing to avoid and showed the alternative in one step: pick a time on your phone, wait at home, walk in when it is your turn.
Every headline, script and landing page went through the client's compliance review before production, which let us move quickly once the work was approved.
Budget shares are illustrative. Results were measured with aggregate check-in counts from the clinic system.
Results reflect specific campaigns and are not a guarantee of future performance.
Patient privacy. No tracking pixels or third-party tags were placed on patient-facing check-in pages, consistent with HIPAA and HHS guidance on online tracking technologies.
Capabilities
Four disciplines, one team and one strategy document that ties the creative and the media plan to the business goal. Hire us for all of it or for one part.
Strategy
Positioning, brand architecture and messaging, grounded in customer research and the numbers your CFO watches.
Process
Creative
Campaigns across TV, CTV, digital, social, OOH and print. Fewer ideas, pushed further, built to last several years.
Process
Media
Integrated plans with one budget view across channels, bought by the same team that wrote the strategy.
Process
Production
In-house video, photo and digital production, so ideas survive the trip from deck to screen at a sensible cost.
Process
A partner leads every account personally, with a dedicated strategy, creative and media team. The people in the pitch are the people on the work.
Yes, though most clients hire us for integrated work. Media-only clients still get the same planning discipline and reporting.
With a paid four-week brand and media diagnostic. You get a written assessment and a recommended plan, and you are free to take it anywhere.
Yes. Banking, credit unions, insurance and healthcare make up much of our partners' experience. We build compliance review into the schedule from day one.
About
Hargrove Stone is an independent, partner-led advertising agency based in Chicago. Our partners spent their careers inside global networks. We started Hargrove Stone to give mid-market brands that level of thinking with a team small enough to care about every detail.
Manifesto
We believe a brand is the most valuable asset most companies never put on the balance sheet. We believe a good idea should work in a 6-second pre-roll and a 30-foot billboard. We believe the media plan is part of the creative, and the creative is part of the business plan.
We believe mid-market companies deserve senior people. We believe in saying it plainly, showing up in person and reporting honestly when something does not work. And we believe the best measure of an agency is whether its clients grow.
Founding Partner, Strategy
Led brand strategy for national banking, insurance and CPG accounts at a global network agency. Leads every new engagement's diagnostic.
Founding Partner, Creative
Creative director across TV, retail and healthcare work at network agencies in Chicago and New York. Reviews every piece that leaves the building.
Founding Partner, Media
Ran integrated media planning for regional and national advertisers. Owns the one-budget view and the quarterly business review.
Experience listed describes our partners' careers before Hargrove Stone. Replace placeholders with real names and approved bios.
A founding partner leads your business. No bait and switch after the pitch.
Strategy, creative and media live in one document with one set of goals.
In ads, in reports and in meetings. If something is not working, you hear it from us first.
We would rather build one campaign that runs for years than ten that run for weeks.
Accounts, velocity, appointments, applications. Awards are welcome; they are not the goal.
Mid-market money is real money. We plan and produce like it is ours.
How we work
Companies between $20M and $500M in revenue: regional banks and credit unions, insurance, healthcare networks, CPG, auto dealer groups and B2B. Big enough to need real advertising, lean enough that every dollar is watched.
News & points of view
The agency has opened its first office in Chicago's West Loop, with space for strategy, creative, media and an in-house edit suite. The team will grow to serve mid-market clients across the Midwest and beyond.
Free pitches reward the agency that guesses best. A paid diagnostic rewards the one that listens best. In four weeks we review your data, talk to your customers and sales team, audit your media and deliver a written plan you own outright.
Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender and NCUA notices are required, and they do not have to look like an afterthought. Our partners share how they plan disclosure into layouts from the first sketch, and why that speeds up compliance review.
Two new roles are open in Chicago. Both work directly with a founding partner from the first week. See the Careers page for details.
View open roles →Press inquiries: see the press contact on the Contact page.
Careers
A small team means your work reaches the client unfiltered. We hire people who like the business side of advertising as much as the craft.
Lead research and positioning for mid-market clients, write the strategy document and brief the creative and media teams. Reports to the Founding Partner, Strategy.
Pay range: [add range as required by applicable pay-transparency laws].
Build and manage integrated plans across CTV, audio, social, search and OOH. Own weekly optimization and monthly reporting against business KPIs.
Pay range: [add range as required by applicable pay-transparency laws].
Send a short note and a link to your work. We reply to every applicant.
Hargrove Stone is an equal opportunity employer.
Thanks — we'll reply within one business day.
Contact
Tell us about the business and what needs to move. A partner reads every message and replies within one business day.
Office
Hargrove Stone
[Street address], Chicago, IL ZIP
West Loop · Fulton Market
Thanks — we'll reply within one business day.
Legal
Effective Date: October 5, 2026
This document is the Privacy Policy for hargrovestone.com (the Pages), the website run under the trade name Hargrove Stone for brand strategy, creative, media, and production. It explains the categories of information handled and the choices available to those who visit.
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Hargrove Stone
Email: support@hargrovestone.com
Website: hargrovestone.com
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Legal
Effective Date: October 5, 2026
These Terms and Conditions apply to hargrovestone.com (the Pages), operated under the trade name Hargrove Stone for brand strategy, creative, media, and production. They describe the rights and responsibilities that attach to use of the Pages.
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This document may be updated from time to time. When it is, the revised version will be posted here with a new effective date, and the updated terms apply from the date of posting.
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Questions about these Terms and Conditions may be directed to:
Hargrove Stone
Email: support@hargrovestone.com
Website: hargrovestone.com