Jonah Ballow, Keith Stoeckeler and Eliot Gerard started Heartlent Group in the summer of 2020 — a COVID baby born from the wreckage of holding company life and the conviction that three experienced sports creatives could move faster, cleaner and better on their own.
The name is a mashup of heart and talent. The model is a collective: three founders with 20-plus years of combined sports marketing experience, augmented by a deep bench of freelancers assembled per brief. Their trademarked mantra — “When the moment matters most” — isn’t a slogan. It’s a job description. All-Star campaigns, playoff campaigns, MVP celebrations, NFL PA trophies. If there’s a big moment in sports, Heartlent Group has been there.
3 founders, 1 collective and a deep bench of freelancers
The collective concept felt novel in 2020. “It has since become less novel,” Stoeckeler says with a laugh. But the structure works: three founders handling strategy, creative direction and production, with a trusted network of collaborators brought in based on whatever the brief demands.
All three knew each other for years before going indie. They’ve worked together on the Knicks, the Timberwolves, team-side and agency-side. The familiarity means zero ramp-up time — and a shared instinct for what sports fans care about when the stakes are highest.
What Heartlent is known for: sports moments that can’t wait
“When the moment matters most” captures something specific. Sports moments have expiration dates. When Joel Embiid won MVP, Under Armour needed content deployed immediately — but couldn’t get the player into a production studio.
Heartlent Group built a fully illustrated, animated piece ahead of time that was ready to publish the moment the announcement dropped. “You only have that moment in sports to take advantage of it,” Ballow says. “It was a smashing hit for Under Armour.”
The agency also designs and produces trophies for the NFL Players Association. If a player wins a big award, Heartlent Group made the hardware.
3 things Heartlent does differently
Sports is the trunk of the tree — deeply rooted expertise from every angle of the industry. Second is flexibility with senior access. “You’re getting leadership-level people on every project, whether it’s large or small,” Gerard says. Whether it’s a full campaign or a tight-turnaround social asset, the founders are in it.
Third — and Ballow insists this is the most important — problem solving. “We’re marketing plumbers,” Gerard says. Heartlent Group doesn’t always get fully fleshed briefs. They get problems and figure out the best solution through whatever the budget, timeline and resources allow.
The indie steakhouse (not a chain restaurant)
Stoeckeler appreciates the speed of independence — the ability to make decisions, shift direction and control the work without the holding company email chains. Gerard adds that indie life means different expectations from clients — “more fun expectations.”
“It’s like going to a really good steakhouse that’s not part of a chain,” Gerard says. “You’re going to get really good filet mignon.”
Ballow zeroes in on the talent advantage: the freedom to bring in specialists for each brief without asking permission. And the ability to eliminate the bloat between client and creative. “You’re talking to the three people who are your project manager, who oversee the project, who work on the strategy and who are either doing or directing the creative.”
Why brands (and agencies) should call Heartlent
Beyond direct brand work, Heartlent Group thrives as a collaborator with other agencies. “Strip ego,” Ballow says. “Let’s play to our strengths and double down on those strengths, instead of saying ‘yeah, we also do this’ but not really.”
They’ve white-labeled. They’ve partnered with PR and experiential agencies on sports-adjacent briefs. Ballow sees this as the future: indie agencies with complementary disciplines teaming up project by project — no holding company required.
The freelancer contract: responsiveness, reliability, ideas
Heartlent Group holds freelancers to a high standard — but gives them room to spread their wings. “We’re not just looking for hired hands,” Ballow says. “We’re looking for people who are true experts in their field.” A DP on a commercial shoot isn’t just executing a shot list — they’re collaborating and offering ideas.
The baseline is simpler than you’d think: be responsive, be on time, land the work. “Those are basic principles,” Ballow says. “But once that trust evaporates, we lose the ability to go back to that person.”
Gerard puts it bluntly: “We expect ourselves to not be a cog in the machine. So we want everyone who works with us to feel the same way.”
Misfits with a 3-foot microphone
Every guest on the show gets the same question: are you a weirdo, a misfit or an underdog? All three founders pick “all of the above.” They’re disruptive (misfits), they came from a monster agency during COVID with nothing but uncertainty (underdogs) and they once built a three-foot replica of a Shure SM58 — the most recognizable handheld microphone on the planet — and brought it to the Super Bowl as part of a client activation.
That, Stoeckeler admits, was pretty weird. But it got reactions.
The underdog feeling doesn’t go away. “We’re not trying to just have a nice little shop,” Ballow says. “We want to do the biggest campaigns, the biggest projects possible. And we’re not afraid of going up against the big agencies.”
Dear Netflix, Prime and Disney+: we’ve got the content
Stoeckeler’s North Star project is getting Heartlent Group’s content onto a streaming platform — Netflix, Prime, Disney+. They’ve had conversations. Some have fallen short. But the ambition is clear.
Ballow takes a different tack, calling out the spirit of brands like Liquid Death — companies built on creative risk-taking. “It’d be a fun pairing to work with a brand that’s willing to take that risk and is built on that risk,” he says. “We’d love to combine their approach with our thoughts and ideas.”
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Eliot Gerard LinkedIn
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