Candor is part of a team of three agencies — including Salient and Honeymoon — that works as one to meet our clients’ growth needs.
This structure is unique in the marketing, communication and advertising industry, but it’s a model that’s serving our employees and our clients well. Salient President & CEO Tricia Ewald shares the advantages of this collaborative approach, how we successfully tap into talent across our agencies and what’s on the horizon for 2025.
How do Salient, Honeymoon and Candor differ in terms of service offerings and experience?
Salient is what we call an “experience agency” — we develop strategic, creative solutions to drive meaningful change for clients of all sizes, and we excel at finding what’s most important at the intersection of brand, employee and customer experiences.
Honeymoon is a creative communications agency. They create big, innovative ideas to make major brands get noticed and remembered. Red jackets dominating the Masters? Yeah, that was Honeymoon. And team members from Salient and Honeymoon have worked together for decades to service major brands like Mars Wrigley, Sazerac, Halo Top, Staples, AMC Theatres and more.
And as Candor clients are well aware, Candor specializes in integrated marketing and is highly skilled at digital advertising, social media marketing, media relations and public affairs. For Salient and Honeymoon, having access to the strategic and organized minds at Candor has taken our work to the next level. For Candor, tapping into our deep, national relationships has helped bring their work onto a larger stage.
Bottom line: By combining the strengths of Salient, Honeymoon, and Candor, we’re giving clients access to an even broader range of skills and expertise.
What advantages does the team-of-three structure provide to current and potential clients?
We can plan around clients’ growth goals based on the specific capabilities and skills across our teams. Clients get access to multiple integrated capabilities without having to manage several agencies. We never try to force fit solutions that one agency holds. We can offer single solutions, but the real value to our clients is helping them connect dots and go further than they could go alone — quickly. We operate as one team internally to bring more value and remove inefficiencies for our clients.
What’s an example of a particular project or campaign where the three agencies worked together innovatively?
One of my favorites is the back-to-school campaign helping Oklahoma families prepare their health for the upcoming school year. Salient and Honeymoon provided support on creative direction and messaging, while Candor spearheaded the integrated marketing strategy. And, most importantly, the campaign drove real-world action — immunizations in the state’s second-largest county jumped by nearly 70% year-over-year! The fact that Candor is a finalist for PRWeek’s “Best in Public Sector” award for our campaign work is the cherry on top.
I also love the Fireball “Crierball” campaign celebrating the fierce and tearful emotion of football rivals. Honeymoon created and drove the idea, while Salient and Candor were brought in for the execution, traveling across the country to literally collect distraught football fans’ tears and get endless media coverage.
Both campaigns leveraged capabilities across all teams and were extremely successful in surpassing client goals.
How do you envision our team of agencies working together and delivering even greater value to our clients in 2025?
The marketing and communication industry is changing. Recently, it was announced Omnicon Group agreed to acquire Interpublic Group (IPG), which would create the world’s largest holding company This acquisition underlines how major holding companies are managing uncertainties in their current business models— especially with disruptions caused by AI and other technological shifts.
Big agencies are just getting bigger, and inevitably clients will get left behind. That’s why our team-of-three model is advantageous. Together, we provide the attentive, highly personalized service of an independent agency and the chops that come from working with major brands on a national and international level. I predict our unique combination of service + experience levels will be an outlier in 2025.