Ben Guttmann
Alongside some great friends, I ran the marketing agency Digital Natives Group for ten years, from the beginning of the iPhone age to the dawn of TikTok. I'm proud that we built an incredible team, helped inspiring clients tell their stories, built our local creative and technology community, and won some awards and made a few bucks in the process.
After an exciting run, we were honored to sell Digital Natives Group to a pair of industry-leading partners – making sure every employee had a job and every client had a home in the process. Here's a little bit of that story.
In 2011, we piled into my rusty '94 Honda Accord, drove up to Westchester, and slapped our logo on the wall of an old professor's basement. Digital Natives Group started with a few friends working with the local ice cream parlor and camera shop, and grew to a team of nearly twenty world-class creatives working with titanic brands and global thought leaders.
As our team grew, we moved to a funky industrial building in Long Island City, Queens, where we quickly became community leaders through pro-bono work for local non-profits, sponsorship of neighborhood events and organizations, and opening up our doors to tech meet-ups and other industry gatherings.
We worked with legendary clients on work that moved the needle – and moved millions of dollars in product. For brands like the NFL, I Love NY, and Comcast NBCUniversal – and leaders that ranged from Nobel Prize winners to Fortune 500 CEOs to Hollywood screenwriters – we created thousands of pieces of content and built hundreds of custom digital activations. Among other wins, we're proud to have been the team behind:
The work was its own reward, and it literally took us from the Super Bowl to the top of Empire State Building to the New York State Capitol, but it was always nice to be recognized by our peers for our efforts. Our curious team was known to be tireless and relentless in our pursuit of the things and ideas that move people, and our hard work paid off for both our clients and our trophy shelf:
While the agency ride is behind me, I've since been working with some really great partners as an independent consultant and advisor. Maybe I can help you directly, or maybe I can point you to some of my favorite agencies that are still doing ground-breaking work today. Get in touch and I'll be happy to chat.
Talk to Me
