Marc Brownstein spent 36 years building Brownstein Group into a Philadelphia advertising institution. Then he decided to blow it up and start over.
In January 2024, Brownstein Group became Born and Raised, a creative studio that ditched the traditional agency playbook in favor of something leaner, faster, and more instinctual. The rebrand wasn’t just cosmetic—it was philosophical. Out went the pitch decks and endless meetings. In came a model where ideas move at the speed of conversation and creative work gets made, not managed.
With Gary Greenberg as Chief Creative Officer and a tight team of makers, Born and Raised operates on a simple premise: trust your gut, move fast, and make things clients remember. As Marc puts it, “We’re not trying to be everything to everyone anymore. We’re trying to be the right thing for the right people.”
The breaking point: why 36 years wasn’t enough
The decision to rebrand didn’t happen overnight. Marc had been running Brownstein Group since 1990, watching the industry shift under his feet. The traditional agency model started feeling less like a business and more like a relic.
“I kept asking myself, ‘What are we doing here?'” Marc explains. “We were spending so much time pitching, presenting, explaining—and not enough time just making great work.” The agency had success, clients, credentials. But something felt off. The work was getting bogged down in process. The energy was draining out of the room.
The final push came from a combination of burnout and clarity. Marc realized he didn’t want to spend the next decade doing what he’d done for the past 36 years. He wanted to build something that felt alive again—something that ran on instinct instead of infrastructure.
What Born and Raised means (and why it matters)
The name Born and Raised isn’t an accident. It’s a Philadelphia reference, a statement of origin, and a philosophy rolled into one. Marc wanted something that felt rooted and real—not another generic agency name that could belong to anyone, anywhere.
“Born and Raised is about where you come from,” Marc says. “It’s about having a point of view shaped by experience, not borrowed from a deck someone else wrote.”
The rebrand also signaled a shift in how the studio operates. Traditional agencies build layers: account teams, strategy teams, production teams. Born and Raised stripped all that away. Now it’s Marc, Gary, and a core group of creatives who work directly with clients. No intermediaries. No bureaucracy. Just ideas and execution.
The creative studio model: fast, instinctual, and deliberately small
Born and Raised calls itself a creative studio, not an agency. The distinction matters. Studios make things. Agencies manage things. Marc wanted to get back to making.
The model is simple: keep the team small, kill the hierarchy, and move at the speed of trust. When a client has a problem, they talk directly to the people who’ll solve it. No six-layer game of telephone. No endless rounds of internal approvals.
“We’re built for speed,” Gary explains. “A client calls with an idea, and we can turn around creative in days, not weeks. That’s not because we’re cutting corners—it’s because we’re not wasting time on process that doesn’t add value.”
The studio focuses on what Marc calls “instinctual creativity”—work that comes from gut feel and cultural awareness, not research reports. It’s a bet that experience and intuition can beat data and committees. So far, it’s working.
The clients who get it (and the ones who don’t)
Not every client is built for the Born and Raised model. Some brands need the structure and scale of a traditional agency. Others thrive in the stripped-down, high-trust environment Marc built.
The studio’s sweet spot is brands that value speed and creativity over process and politics. Companies that trust their partners to move fast and make smart calls. Clients who understand that great creative often comes from instinct, not iteration.
“We’re not for everyone,” Marc admits. “And that’s fine. We’d rather work with five clients who trust us completely than 50 who want to micromanage every pixel.”
The client roster includes brands that appreciate Born and Raised’s approach: direct access to creative leadership, fast turnarounds, and work that feels fresh because it’s made by people who still care about making things.
What independence actually means now
Marc has been independent for 36 years, but the rebrand gave him a new appreciation for what independence makes possible. It’s not just about ownership—it’s about having the freedom to reinvent yourself when the moment demands it.
“At a holding company, you can’t just decide to become something completely different,” Marc says. “You’re locked into infrastructure, quarterly earnings, all this stuff that keeps you doing what you’ve always done. Independence gave us permission to start over.”
The transition from Brownstein Group to Born and Raised proved that independence isn’t just about avoiding corporate overlords. It’s about maintaining the ability to change direction when your gut tells you it’s time. No board to convince. No stakeholders to manage. Just the courage to trust your instincts and rebuild.
The Philadelphia factor: rooted, real, and unapologetic
Born and Raised is deliberately, unapologetically Philadelphia. The city shapes the work, the attitude, and the approach. Marc didn’t want to build something that could exist anywhere—he wanted to build something that could only exist here.
“Philadelphia has this no-bullshit energy,” Gary explains. “People can smell fake from a mile away. That’s in our DNA. The work has to be real, or it doesn’t fly.”
The studio’s Philadelphia roots also influence how they approach clients. There’s a directness, a lack of pretense, that comes from the city’s culture. Born and Raised doesn’t over-promise or over-complicate. They tell you what they think, make the work, and let it speak for itself.
It’s a model that works because it’s honest. And honesty, as it turns out, is a pretty good foundation for a creative studio.
Learn more
Born and Raised
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Gary Greenberg LinkedIn
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