It makes sense that a San Francisco Advertising agency would have San Francisco Advertising clients. And while this circumstantial factor was responsible for many of our early local projects, Iron has turned its focus to this audience, winning work from the de Young Museum, the Legion of Honor, the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, Bay Area Jobs and more.

We saw early on that our work for San Francisco institutions was getting remarkable results, so it made sense to make the area a specialty. But why did we have that success? Well, I could say it’s because I’m a San Francisco native and I have my ear to the city’s volksgeist. But I won’t, because the word “volksgeist” is really, really pretentious.

And more to the point, regardless of my intimate knowledge of the San Francisco demographic, I am the only native San Franciscan in the agency. Instead, we believe that the secret of our success in the San Francisco market is more a product of our agency’s philosophy – that advertising should be VERY smart.

We just don’t believe people will take an interest in an advertising message unless there’s an element of discovery – what lots of folks call an “aha” moment. And in a city like San Francisco, where just about every heartbeat has a college degree or better to go with it, this approach to advertising tends to resonate. So if you’re advertising here, you’d better be doing it with that in mind.