By Steve Darnley, Maestro

Looking back, I see, the roots of Tugboat Creative reach a long way into my past.

Long ago....

When I was 16 years old, I discovered Adbusters magazine. It offered a sharp social critique of mainstream media, popular culture, and consumerism—and its ideas have stayed with me ever since.

A few years later, I was at a dinner party in a lively argument about how most shoppers had no idea of where their products are made or who’s getting rich from them. Marketers profited from this lack of awareness, at real cost to society’s values and the earth’s resources.

Before long, I decided to make a career of addressing these problems by learning the “tricks” of marketing—and using them for the greater good.

I buckled down in my graphic-design studies, worked at a couple of East Coast ad agencies during the dot-com boom, and finally took a safe, boring job in the “creative” department of a large corporation, absorbing everything I could about the business of marketing.

...And far away

The walls of the large corporation were holding me back. I began looking for another job that more closely aligned with my goals. I'd been following the track of a cool-sounding ad agency in Portland, Oregon, and talked my way into an informational interview. But when I got there, they completely blew me off.

Dejected, I wandered the aisles of a Portland's famous Powell's City of Books with my career hopes shattered. I had already begun wondering what was next. Moving? A new job? Or was it time to combine my values and skills and start something on my own? What if starting a socially responsible ad agency was the thing to do? Getting a book on the topic would probably be a good idea.

I stumbled upon a gently used copy of The Soul of a Business by Tom Chappell, founder of Tom’s of Maine. The book was Tom’s manifesto for his famously progressive business. It cost $4.95. I reached into my pocket and found a lone five-dollar bill.

It was 2002, several years before “social responsibility” and “being green” became mainstream. But I was full of ideas: The idea that small dollars can make a big difference. The idea that building brands that do good things with these small dollars. The idea that good brands can connect consumers to a bigger picture of wholesome human values and the greater good of the planet.

Over the next two years, I read about and talked with people running socially responsible businesses. What did “socially responsible marketing” mean to them? How did they sell their products and serve the greater good?

Gradually, a rough idea and a team of players for a new kind of marketing agency came into being. We’d be honest and forthright. We’d engage consumers as best we could and show them how the dollars spent at a socially responsible business would benefit the world.

Without a portfolio, business cards, or even a name, we launched into a few small projects. The name Tugboat was meant to be a placeholder until we thought of something better. But then we realized it was strong and memorable—and paid homage to our home on the working waterfront of Portland, Maine. And eventually we found a tagline—“A small entity moving big ideas”—that clinched it.

By 2005, Tugboat Creative had gotten the attention of two of Maine’s best-known socially responsible businesses—Coffee By Design and GrandyOats Granola. I’m happy to report that we’ve been with them ever since.

In April 2006, I left my comfortable corporate job to work on Tugboat full time from a tiny home office. In October, the office moved to a shared space in downtown Portland and, in September 2007, to a dedicated space a few miles east in the beautiful hydro-powered Sparhawk Mill in Yarmouth, Maine.

Today, the Tugboat team works with well over a dozen active clients at any one time, helping build the brands of New England companies and organizations that share a common goal—of taking less, doing more, and giving back.