Culture
They say you should never show emotion in business. We built this agency knowing (and proving) that is exactly how you succeed.
Feelings drive behavior
By creating stories using words, sound, and images to attract and engage customers on a deeper level, we help your brand inspire people to feel in ways other brands don’t – the heart flutter, the heat of desire, the butterflies in the stomach, the lump in the throat.
Because emotions drive action, increase revenue and elevate sales.
From casual to commitment
A long-term relationship based on trust and loyalty? Umm… yes, please.
We help your brand evoke powerful emotions to forge stronger relationships between brand and customer, creating meaningful connections, greater differentiation and lasting market success.
Science + stories = yes
We use technology and data to uncover the most effective ways to anticipate and motivate customer responses. This allows us to better understand important, often unseen, patterns of consumer emotion and behavior.
Then, we find the sweet spot between the science of emotion and art of storytelling to ignite your branding and marketing strategy.
We get emotional about:
Making you a market success
As nimble, proactive, and independent thinkers driven to ensure positive financial results, we simultaneously support your desire to make a meaningful brand impact.
Collaborating
Getting to know your brand inspires what we bring to life, and how we do our best work. We collaborate closely with you. We listen to your ideas, share ours, and promise honesty, always.
Developing ideas that come from the heart
Humanizing your brand is key. Let’s not just create another company, product, or service. Let’s create a more personal, interactional experience inspired by feelings, and not just financial value.
Offering transparency and accountability
These words speak for themselves, yes?
Every great blockbuster
has an origin story
Sagon-Phior grew out of the movie industry. It is in our DNA. Our Chief Creative Officer, Rio Phior, was global Creative Director for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Our CEO, Glenn Sagon, was Creative Director in the Worldwide Marketing Group for Columbia Pictures.
Together, and individually, Sagon and Phior have produced hundreds of campaigns for every major studio and marketed many of the biggest blockbusters and cult classics in history. Some include Star Wars, Return of The Jedi, Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, Empire Strikes Back, Dances with Wolves, Home Alone, Edward Scissorhands, Jumanji, The Big Lebowski and Men in Black.
Sagon-Phior grew out of the movie industry. It is in our DNA. Our Chief Creative Officer, Rio Phior, was global Creative Director for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Our CEO, Glenn Sagon, was Creative Director in the Worldwide Marketing Group for Columbia Pictures.
Together, and individually, Sagon and Phior have produced hundreds of campaigns for every major studio and marketed many of the biggest blockbusters and cult classics in history. Some include Star Wars, Return of The Jedi, Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, Empire Strikes Back, Dances with Wolves, Home Alone, Edward Scissorhands, Jumanji, The Big Lebowski and Men in Black.
The golden rule
Early on Sagon and Phior learned the golden rule in Hollywood: Don’t just sell the movie; sell the movie the audience wants to see. Like movies, not all brands are inherently blockbusters. Often, we must find the most creative way to connect with an audience while still remaining true to the brand. It’s what Sagon-Phior has done for over 2000 brands, more than three decades.
Experience in the entertainment industry informs how we develop marketing and branding strategies. Emotion drives action. Logic plays a role, but creative content must captivate at a visceral level. Our whole team takes that rule to heart and applies it to every brand – it is unique, unexpected, and continues to drive significant ROI for every single client.
Early on Sagon and Phior learned the golden rule in Hollywood: Don’t just sell the movie; sell the movie the audience wants to see. Like movies, not all brands are inherently blockbusters. Often, we must find the most creative way to connect with an audience while still remaining true to the brand. It’s what Sagon-Phior has done for over 2000 brands, more than three decades.
Experience in the entertainment industry informs how we develop marketing and branding strategies. Emotion drives action. Logic plays a role, but creative content must captivate at a visceral level. Our whole team takes that rule to heart and applies it to every brand – it is unique, unexpected, and continues to drive significant ROI for every single client.
The saga continues…
In 1986, Rio Phior and Glenn Sagon, attracted to the creative freedom that autonomy brings, left their positions to join forces. Originally forming an entertainment boutique called Eidolon, they acquired every major entertainment studio as clients. Then they branched out to attract mainstream businesses wanting to incorporate entertainment sizzle into their marketing. By 1996, the Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG) acquired Sagon-Phior. They assisted IPG in developing creative marketing strategies for clients of the top ten agencies in the world.
By 2002, Glenn and Rio returned to the unbridled freedom of being an independent agency. They employed the best strategic and creative minds in the business. Our team has applied the philosophy of emotional marketing and branding with great success ever since.
In 1986, Rio Phior and Glenn Sagon, attracted to the creative freedom that autonomy brings, left their positions to join forces. Originally forming an entertainment boutique called Eidolon, they acquired every major entertainment studio as clients. Then they branched out to attract mainstream businesses wanting to incorporate entertainment sizzle into their marketing. By 1996, the Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG) acquired Sagon-Phior. They assisted IPG in developing creative marketing strategies for clients of the top ten agencies in the world.
By 2002, Glenn and Rio returned to the unbridled freedom of being an independent agency. They employed the best strategic and creative minds in the business. Our team has applied the philosophy of emotional marketing and branding with great success ever since.
Leadership
Some say we’re obsessed with creating ideas that affect the way people feel; we’d say, they’re not wrong.
Here we are.
Glenn Sagon
Glenn drives the marketing and branding strategies that build sales and revenue for Sagon-Phior’s clients. He is a creative thinker with keen business acumen, delivering measurable results and groundbreaking work for prestigious global brands.
Rio Phior
As the co-founder of Sagon-Phior, Rio guides and directs the creative strategies for Sagon-Phior, helping brands develop, enhance, and grow their market share.
Greg Martin David
Greg is a seasoned bilingual brand and communication strategist with over a decade of experience across diverse regions, including South Africa, the broader African continent, Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the USA.
Renée Tuzee
With 25 years of experience on the agency and client side, Renée quickly develops a deep understanding of clients’ business needs and delivers marketing programs that move the needle.
Bill Fate
With a father who was a blacksmith, woodworker, and physicist (in that order), Bill grew up learning that details matter, no matter what the task. And for over twenty years, Bill has put that philosophy into action at Sagon-Phior.
Chandler Locke
Chandler’s ability to adapt to different challenges and environments makes him a trusted collaborator in delivering projects that exceed expectations. Areas of expertise include fashion, lifestyle, financial services, automotive, people, travel, and more.
Colin Johns
Every day, Colin understands the significance of finding creative ways to bridge the gap between information and understanding a brand. A man of many talents, including illustration, watercolor, and ink painting, Colin contributes artistically fresh and original ideas to all projects.
Fernanda Aceves
Fernanda is a highly accomplished, passionate digital strategist, social marketer, and public relations professional with almost a decade of experience. Her background includes having worked with prestigious global and multicultural, luxury, fashion, business and entertainment brands.
Christopher Skinner
Chris is our resident science geek, and we couldn’t do any of what we do without him. He is an expert at discovering consumers’ hidden desires using psychology, big data, and computational linguistics.
Peter Stougaard
Peter believes that every idea must be viewed in the environment it is intended for. This is the reason Peter is so good at creating experiences.
Russell Coon
Russ has one foot in two worlds, the real and the digital, and he feels equally at home in both. That’s why he’s a master web specialist, Sagon-Phior’s resident Digital Developer tech guru.
Stacey Doss
Stacey believes that anything worth writing about, must be worth reading about. With twenty-plus years of Public Relations expertise in the areas of high tech, entertainment, healthcare, real estate, non-profit, fashion, and business services, Stacey knows that every brand is its own unique creature and works her magic to make sure that the world, and everyone in it, knows too.
Jesse Sikorski
Jesse is a deep thinker, especially when it comes to visual communication. He has the gift of youthful spontaneous flair, which he injects in all projects.
Carol Simas
Carol knows that marketing is most successful when it contains a core product truth; a truth that resonates deeply with consumers. As such, with expertise in qualitative, quantitative, and secondary research, she’s particularly adept at finding the hidden nuggets of data that can inform—and change—a brand’s direction.
Jennifer Najar
Jennifer has worked in the accounting and account management fields since 2005. She really enjoys helping our leadership strategically plan and manage finances for the financial year.
Humble brag
Our agency has been the recipient of over 150 national and international awards for creativity and marketing effectiveness. But we don’t really care about that (well, maybe a little). All we care about is that you win.
“We had two goals – developing a strategic direction to rebrand the company through a new website seeded with original content, and targeting two very different audiences with powerful messaging, stories, and a dynamic user interface.This continues to make a significant and positive impact in awareness, engagement and conversions.“
Michael Scallon
VP Marketing, E.B. Bradley & Company
Legacy clients
We’d like to thank all the wonderful client partnerships we’ve had over the years, but this would scroll forever. So, this is small sampling. It takes teamwork to make success happen. We continue to support the United Way, Cancer Support Community, Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, Race to Erase MS and helped to develop the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiative of the National Charity League.