Business: PATHOS is a full-service, multidisciplinary marketing firm that takes a creative approach to solving its clients brand-building needs.
Launched: 1990
HQ: West Palm Beach
Employees: 18
Website: WeArePathos.com
In the rapidly-changing world of marketing, businesses must stay on top of the trends to keep their competitive edge. But Shane Savage, Chief Strategy Officer of PATHOS, admits that this is often easier said than done.
Savage sympathizes with this struggle that many of his clients face. He relishes the opportunity to, in his words, “translate” the ever-evolving opportunities and threats facing companies in an increasingly complex marketing environment.
PATHOS “offers strategic marketing executed through design-orientated thinking,” said Savage. They take a creative “left and right brain” approach to tackle clients’ thorniest marketing needs. This strategy has worked well for PATHOS, which boasts a rapidly expanding client base throughout the South Florida region and, increasingly, the rest of the US.
One way to think about PATHOS, according to Savage, is as an outsourced marketing department for mid-sized corporations: “we’ve become vertically integrated over the decades.”
But the PATHOS team is more multidisciplinary than what you would find in a typical corporate environment. “We hire multifaceted and multidimensional people – people with diverse sets of backgrounds and skills that allow us to adapt quickly and bring cutting-edge innovation to each client,” explained Savage. “As marketing trends come and go, what you need are fantastic people who are hungry to keep learning and keep growing.”
“This has allowed us to break down silos,” he continued, comparing PATHOS to more traditional marketing companies that hire for rigid roles that conform to predefined verticals. By contrast, at PATHOS, “programmers talk to copywriters, copywriters talk to designers, brand consultants speak to all of them.”
The services PATHOS is able to offer reflect their employees’ wide range of skills. They help companies across the entire product lifecycle. Savage mentioned a few tangible ways PATHOS engages with clients: “we help them bring a new product to market, create branding around it, conduct internal training sessions around how to speak about this new product, create go-to-market strategies, leverage media to win new sales.” This beginning-to-end approach ensures that all their clients’ marketing needs are met.
Savage believes that small businesses are often overwhelmed with social media, but that “quality over quantity wins every day.” He said that it’s best to focus on one or two social media channels and use them effectively, rather than have a business stretch itself too thin by using too many platforms. This philosophy also extends to clients: Savage advises newer businesses to avoid “getting caught up on trying to continue getting clients, and try to serve repeat clients well.”
While PATHOS has clients across the US, the company is deeply rooted in the West Palm Beach community. “West Palm Beach is no longer just a tourist destination,” said Savage, “it’s a thriving business center.”
Savage cited Florida’s competitive tax rates, coupled with the trend towards decentralized workforces since the onset of the pandemic, as two major factors leading to the current economic boom in South Florida. According to Savage, PATHOS prides itself on helping “provide a path for career growth for recent college graduates” as well as “continuing to educate the more experienced people in our industry.”
By providing opportunities for workers of all experience levels to “evolve, change, and learn,” Savage believes that local business leaders can develop “a very dynamic work ecosystem in Palm Beach County.”
PATHOS is taking a front-row seat in pushing for this progress. Pathonians (as PATHOS’s employees are called) mentor fledgling businesses at local accelerators, high schools, and colleges.
Savage’s goals are ambitious but commensurate with this moment of rapid growth. “We’re working with partners in the community to make West Palm Beach into a creative capital. I look forward to continue building on the momentum of uplifting West Palm Beach.”