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Milestones: Creative Services
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Business New Haven
11/24/2003
By: Mimi Houston
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Creative Services
64 Bower Road
Madison CT 06443
Tel: 203-318-9000
Fax: 203-318-9001
Web: www.creativeservices.info
Ownership: Kim Barker Craven
Milestone: 12 years
Timeline: In 1991, Kim Barker Craven decided to go into business for herself. A graphic designer, she had worked for several companies, and "always ended up the right-hand man."
After taking a year off to have a baby and briefly run a day-care center, she was ready to return to work - on her terms.
"I was having lunch with an old client, who was not happy with his agency," Craven recalls. "A few days later he called with some work, and we were off and running."
Initially founded as a graphic design agency, Craven has expanded her company's activities to include copywriting, public relations, corporate branding, strategic marketing and Web design.
Among her nine employees are both copywriters and graphic designers.
"We do mostly corporate work involving business-to-business or business-to-consumer," Craven says, adding that her company handles projects involving technology, manufacturing and consumer goods.
Clients include Cuno, a Meriden water filtration company, and the University of Connecticut, for which Creative Services develops marketing materials.
The business has "grown very slowly," but currently is thriving, according to Craven. "Gross sales are up 66 percent over last year," she reports.
Achievements and Accomplishments: From the outset, Craven was determined to make her business different from the pressure-cooker environments in which she'd worked.
"I wanted to do good work, work with nice people and enjoy the clients," she says. And that's just how it has turned out.
Along the way, Creative Services has picked up its share of prizes. This year the company won several awards from the Admissions Marketing Association, including those for a student viewbook, a recruitment package for the UConn School of Business and a brochure for an executive MBA program.
The most effective campaign, Craven says, was one the company developed last year for Aspire Learning, a fledgling Web-based software company offering one of the first Web-based blackboards for teachers to post homework assignments and interact with parents. The start-up campaign attracted more than 900 new users.
Looking Back on a Changing Industry: To celebrate its 12th anniversary, Creative Services is releasing a CD showcasing its work and new Web site, which uses the concept of the journey as a metaphor for the creative process.
The company is positioning itself as a comprehensive strategic marketing and graphic design firm, with the tagline, "Strategy. Execution. Results."
Craven attributes the recent surge in growth to this approach.
"We look at a client's market position, define a set of goals and develop a road map to get them there," she says.
"The big buzzword these days - and it's not new - is 'branding.' There's also a push now to use less paper. More and more catalogs are PDF files."
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