BUSINESS PROFILE: STRUCK

SECONDARY CITIES ARE CREATIVE CENTERS

As a secondary city — one defined as falling between 10% and 50% of a nation's largest cities — Salt Lake City could be thought of as overlooked. But, this isn't Struck's belief. Instead, we know our home city is a top destination for creative firms and minds, led by a thriving artistic culture.

Salt Lake City is not Los Angeles or New York City. We don’t need to be. Our strength is our size, which is easily navigable. Our advantage is our surroundings, consisting of world-class recreation. The valley of the Wasatch Front, stretching from Ogden to Provo, is home to over 1.5 million people. Famous film festivals call the state home for a few magical January weeks, but it is the urban artists and craft festivals, and the street buskers who are the lifeblood pumping creativity through the valley on a daily basis.

Struck is a brand transformation agency, specializing in rebranding and repositioning organizations in the tourism and hospitality space, as well as the biotech industry. The advertising world is incredibly complex, but to put it simply, Struck, like most professional marketing firms, sells the time and vision of experienced people. For a firm like ours, Salt Lake offers the right mix of talented people, a business-friendly environment, as well as a growing economy (read: potential clients).

Hollywood was our first home when Struck was founded nearly three decades ago. Soon thereafter, we also needed an address on Park Ave to compete for work. Any art director worth their salt (no pun intended) gravitated out of cities like Salt Lake and headed for the big city. That’s where the work was, and so followed the talent.

In today’s post-pandemic world, we are seeing migration work in reverse rather rapidly. CEOs, VPs, DRs, and CMOs who value the slopes over skyscrapers are relocating to Utah in droves. And unlike the chicken and the egg analogy, we know who came first: artists.

The sign of any neighborhood in transition (a technical term for gentrification) has always been, and always will be, artists. The creative class are early adopters of everything from technology and ideas to social change. Artists move in, and quick to follow are bars and restaurants, then events and festivals. Next in line are lofts and condos. Investment grows block by block, ultimately developing a city around the arts. This transition is unfolding now in Salt Lake’s burgeoning areas, like the Depot District and The Granary.

Fast-forward a few decades from Struck’s LA start and to borrow a phrase from our former Tinseltown stomping grounds SLC has flipped the script. Our firm has flourished because we chose to abandon a cutthroat business climate, unnecessary workforce competition, and exorbitant costs found in coastal cities. Making our SLC office the sole home of Struck was only possible once we were confident we could retain talent that is second to none.

Struck’s President Pauline Ploquin was born in France and grew up in Africa. Then, like Struck, began her creative career in LA. The opportunity to work on the 2002 Olympic Games led her to relocate to Salt Lake City, and the mix of creativity and the outdoors quickly converted her to a resident. Ploquin is part of the influx of worldly and talented professionals over the past two decades who have paved a way for the next generation who now enjoy globally-minded mentors like Pauline.

Two of Struck’s youngest designers have made a name for themselves on the national stage with contributions to award-winning campaigns, and both graduated from Utah State University. Plus, Salt Lake is blessed with digital media arts centers like SpyHop that train school-aged children, arming the next wave of aspiring students with film, music, audio, and design skills. The future is bright, painted by their skilled strokes.

Clients partner with Struck when they need to rebrand in order to position for growth, websites built to boost brand awareness, and outside-of-the-box thinking to increase engagement and growth. In short, we need incredibly talented artists, makers, doers, thinkers, and visionaries to solve challenges on our client’s behalf. Salt Lake City has these creatives, who either trailblazed the path for artists, or drawn by Utah’s quality of life, followed suit.

The lower costs, when compared to larger cities, enjoyed by businesses and residents make the Wasatch Front a great place to start, expand or relocate a business. Building a life and a family in a valley bordered by hiking trails and ski lifts is equally attractive.

In Struck’s work positioning biotech and pharmaceutical brands for fundraising rounds, we hear time and again that the biggest challenge these companies face is recruitment. Many of these companies are in larger cities, where human resources are in short supply and competition is high. In a lot of cases, filling open positions is harder to acquire than a Series A or an IPO. That’s not the case here. Take a look at Utah’s local industry collective, BioHive, comprising over 1,100 life science and healthcare innovation companies in Utah, and the story is instead one of growth and expansion. Utah offers an abundance of talent, as well as available office space, and land to build laboratories or other facilities.

For the longest time, Salt Lake City was our “little” secret. No more. Home to an Olympic Winter Games, multiple professional sports teams, the internationally acclaimed Utah Opera and Symphony, Broadway theaters and performing art centers, plus a state-of-theart airport, it is safe to say the secret is out. And the secret sauce behind record growth and compelling population forecasts for the coming decades? The artistic community. Struck is excited to be at the center of the next chapter in SLC, driven by our creative culture.

Struck works with companies ready to transform their brands in the tourism, hospitality, and biotech industries. We help brands complete their business and digital transformation journey by transforming their experience and brand. Learn more at struck.com.