A stronger voice for business.A stronger business climate for Washington.

The challenge

Washington went from a massive surplus used to justify record spending to a record budget shortfall—without a recession. There was no central repository where people could understand the history, the context, and the facts.

Our client was Washington’s business community. The presentation had to be neutral and credible, with a case that could withstand scrutiny.

The approach

Our approach was “dissertation plus cartoons”: the rigor of deeply sourced research paired with clear, engaging creative.

We developed the strategy and messaging, built the public information resource, and produced the whiteboard explainers and Super Bowl cartoon ads. The resource demystified the state budget with more than 90 citations of the state’s own data. The project generated more than 40 million impressions.

The challenge

For decades, restaurants had ranked among consumers’ favorite industries. Yet consumers regularly supported policies that made it increasingly difficult for those same restaurants to remain viable.

The challenge was to bridge the distance between those two instincts: affection for local restaurants and support for policies that put their future under pressure.

The approach

We surveyed Tacoma residents to understand their knowledge of the restaurant business, then developed the strategy, messaging, and creative behind Tacoma Loves Restaurants. We built the website and produced quizzes, trivia, and videos featuring local restaurant owners and workers, making rising costs tangible through familiar people and places.

The campaign examined those costs from three connected perspectives: owners’ ability to keep their businesses viable, employees’ livelihoods, and consumers’ own dining costs and choices. The goal was to connect Tacoma’s love for its local restaurants with a deeper understanding of what it took to keep them open and thriving.

The challenge

Seattle voters embraced ambitious progressive ideas, but unmet promises too often led to new officeholders rather than greater accountability. The challenge was to move beyond that cycle and examine whether the city’s policies delivered on its aspirations.

The approach

We conceived The Seattle Median, developed its creative identity, built the website, and produced its ongoing editorial content.

The project took Seattle’s ambitions seriously by testing assumptions, tracking progress, and measuring outcomes against intent. Rigorous policy analysis supported clear, accessible conclusions about implementation. The aim was common ground with Seattle voters—shared goals examined with scrutiny, rather than partisan opposition or reflexive cheerleading.

The challenge

The goal of more affordable housing was broadly shared, but resistance to development and misconceptions about its effects remained strong. The challenge was to connect that shared aspiration with support for the additional housing needed to make homeownership attainable.

The approach

We developed the campaign strategy, messaging, and creative. We framed affordability as an availability problem: limited inventory left families with too few options. For Washington REALTORS®, we positioned supply-side reforms as a practical path to homeownership and outlined concrete ways local governments could support more housing.

The website anchored a grassroots strategy activated through paid media, including campaign videos, connecting the case for reform with opportunities for public engagement.

The lieutenant governor hailed the Legislature’s progress and proclaimed it Washington’s “Year of Housing”.

The challenge

SB 5387 sought to protect clinical decision-making from corporate influence. With the debate focused on private equity in healthcare, the broader consequences for hospital care were being overlooked.

The challenge was to explain how a bill pursuing that goal could destabilize staffing arrangements essential to critical care—even where those arrangements did not involve interference in clinical decisions.

The approach

Drawing on state hospital records, federal cost reports, and clinical staffing benchmarks, we assessed individual hospitals against seven weighted risk factors and modeled five categories of transition costs. We then aggregated exposure by health system and examined clinician-transition scenarios to trace potential effects on emergency, intensive-care, and surgical capacity—and patients’ access to care.

An interactive statewide map made the findings locally accessible. Published sources, formulas, and scenario assumptions let readers examine how the estimates were constructed. We presented ranges and distinguished modeled risks from predictions, making uncertainty part of the analysis.

The challenge

A global coffeehouse company faced gift card legislation that created an estimated $200 million in annual exposure. A broad, well-funded coalition of progressive advocacy organizations had already launched a coordinated campaign in a receptive political environment.

The assignment was to credibly counter that narrative, reduce legislative support, and keep the client’s name out of the opposition effort’s legislative and media communications.

The approach

We brought together businesses and associations across retail, grocery, hospitality, banking, and other sectors, centering the debate on the implications for small businesses and consumers. A rapid-response war room coordinated legislative strategy, master and sector-specific messaging, and media outreach.

We secured op-eds and favorable editorials across the state, developed digital content and a social-media toolkit, and drafted testimony and committee and floor remarks for coalition members and allied lawmakers.

When proponents revived the effort through a budget proviso, we used consumer-complaint data and targeted legislative communications to challenge its rationale. The bills failed to advance, and the budget proviso was removed.