It’s circa 2008 and you’re hooked on playing the Adobe Flash game Rooftop Racer. In the game, you are a NASCAR driver who leaves his Coke Zero bottle on the roof of his car, and you have to help him keep it there while racing around the track. This is the project that put Hook on the map.

Michael Watts and Aaron Schwartz, Hook’s co-founders, CEO, and CCO respectively, were in their early-twenties when they became friends. When Aaron moved to Los Angeles, they stayed in touch by playing video games. A year later, he returned to Michigan and they started making them, which is how Hook came to be.

“We were both curious and liked making stuff and learning, so we decided to start a company. We didn’t know anything about the industry. We didn’t have any capital. We just had our computers and a render farm cobbled together from spare parts in a coat closet. So, we filed some papers, paid 50 bucks, and all of a sudden we were a company,” Michael comments.

Eventually, Michael and Aaron moved Hook into a 750-square-foot office space in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Over the next several months they continued to hone their craft and build their portfolio of work from freelance clients. “We found every agency producer’s email address we could and spammed them. And only one person replied,” Michael laughs.

That person was Rob Allen from Crispin Porter + Bogusky – the hottest advertising agency at the time and the digital agency of the decade. He called one night around 11:30 PM when Michael and Aaron were in the middle of fighting a dragon in World of Warcraft, so they told Rob they would call him back tomorrow.

“Once we were done playing, I looked up CP+B, and was like, well, that was stupid. I called him back the next day, and he bid us on a project. We didn’t get the job, but a month later we got asked to bid on another one for Coke Zero called Rooftop Racer. They told us to make a prototype. So we stayed up for two weeks straight,” Michael reflects.

“They told us to make a prototype. So we stayed up for two weeks straight.”

CP+B loved their rendition of Rooftop Racer, so they flew them out to their brand new headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. This was their first introduction to big agency life: where your friends bring you underwear because you’ve been living at the office for weeks at a time. After the success of Rooftop Racer, the work started coming in. “We’d do one project, then after it was done they’d ask us to do two more.”

Now 20 years later, Hook has an impressive 105 employees across 20 states, as well as a global network of freelance creatives. One of the first employees, Tim Harkins, Executive Creative Director, has been at Hook for 15 years. His favorite Hook milestone is seeing how the company has grown and evolved from the beginning. In terms of company culture, Tim explains, “Someone who is rigid in their ways or thinks there is one right way to do something will be a poor fit at Hook. The people here are always looking for new and better ways to make things. We always make sure we’re not just solving the business problem, but pushing ourselves to create work that exceeds expectations, including our own.” Stephany Sperberg, Hook’s Managing Director adds, “We are truly makers, experimenters, and tinkerers. If we know what we want to build, but we don’t really know how to build it, we’re going to figure it out.”

In 2020, Hook won the Ad Age Small Agency of the Year award, in part for their balanced, hard-working, and inclusive culture. Stephany notes, “When I had my first baby – long before we were remote-first – I went to Michael directly and said, “I have to move back home to Las Vegas.” And his response to me verbatim was, “See you online.” And that was it. He was accommodating and there was no concern or hesitation.” The positive culture Hook has created is undeniable. Mikell Fine Iles, Hook’s Executive Design Director adds, “Michael brings the humanity into Hook, and I think that’s sometimes rare when you’re talking about the CEOs who lead organizations.”

“Michael brings the humanity into Hook, and I think that’s sometimes rare when you’re talking about the CEOs who lead organizations.”

To support a fun remote culture and highlight individual employee talent, Hook started the Buried Treasure zine in 2021. It is a printed magazine full of original art and each issue has an inspirational theme. Some past themes have been dreams, choose your fighter, comfort food, and adventure. Submissions range from photography, hand-drawn sketches, quotes, poems, recipes, collages, vector art, AI-generated imagery, comics, cartoons, and more.

Another exciting initiative is Sandbox, Hook’s external one-on-one mentorship program. With a tagline of “Making space for new voices,” the mission is to create opportunity for young talent of diverse backgrounds by offering hands-on experience and exposure to creative professions. This includes entry-level creatives as well as university students from under-represented communities.

When it comes down to the cool work that Hook is doing, Google has been one of their long-standing clients. Hook launched Google’s AI platform Gemini back when it was originally named Bard. One of Mikell’s favorite projects has been the interactive timeline the team created to highlight Google’s AI milestones over the last 20 years. Stephany mentioned the Stories of Helpfulness campaign they did for the Google Search team. And Tim highlighted an AR project called Detroit Living Murals benefiting Detroit based small businesses by working with local mural artists.

Hook is all about curiosity, integrity, and executing brilliant ideas. They are the creative force behind the marketing for the world’s leading advertising platforms, but they believe what is most important are the people who do the work and the experiences they have along the way. “We are fortunate to have the opportunity to shape the advertising that shapes the internet,” Stephany concludes. “And we do it with an incredible team that makes the journey as rewarding as the destination.”

“We are fortunate to have the opportunity to shape the advertising that shapes the internet.”

One Club for Creativity Members get featured here on the One Club website and across our social media channels. Have a new project you want to share? We always love to know what our One Club Members have been up to, so don’t forget to send us your cool work!