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Wordsmiths Macdonald-Starling Promise Well Written Web Content Macdonald-Starling was formed in the summer of 1998, by friends and writing partners, Rob Macdonald and John Patrick Starling. In a time in which everyone seemed to be leaving their jobs in order to sign on with a dot com, Macdonald and Starling didn't quit their day jobs. Both were former creative writing teachers with an interest in business. At the time of the company's inception Rob was a trial paralegal and case manager for a downtown law firm, and John was Vice President of Marketing and Internet Business for Truitt Enterprises, Inc. At first, Macdonald-Starling, Strategic Planning & Development operated on a part-time basis from Truitt's Lutherville offices, with the goal of bringing high-level brand planning and writing to small and middle-market businesses. Over the course of the next year and a half, Macdonald and Starling both left their employers and began concentrating on their firm full time. The team consulted for regional clients from a wide array of industries, including health care, finance, insurance, legal and high tech, and discovered something seriously lacking in the existing marketing mix - well-written Web content. Being small, and equipped with strong writing skills, the firm was able to react to the void in the market. Macdonald-Starling quickly formed collaborative relationships with area Web design firms like Webconnection, Impreza (now Impreza/G1440), Doubleclick'd Publications and national legends like Evolve, of San Francisco. Three years later, the company serves approximately twenty-five Web design companies nationwide and has developed business- focused, audience-specific Web content for Huber Oros & Company, Cyto Pulse Sciences, First Mariner Bank, Camper's Choice, Townsend Capital, and Azman Laser Vision, among others. On the interactive brand planning side, Macdonald-Starling has maintained its strategic focus and developed power statements, creative briefs or Brand Bibles for companies like: BSC America, Illumitek, DataLink Interactive, Brightman Associates, International and NCAS. Macdonald-Starling is now in the process of re-channeling its service offering into two distinctly different, but complimentary, business units. The company is rolling out a new division in mid- August that will handle Web content development exclusively, under the name "Smith Content." Smith Content's office will be located on The Avenue (36th Street) in Hampden in North Baltimore. At the same time, the partners will continue to offer small businesses and middle-market companies message development consulting and strategies towards implementing what they call "The Interactive Marketing Model." On this model, clients are encouraged to manage their own marketing and branding initiatives - bringing to the table only the creative, advisory and multi-media providers they need, allowing companies to take control of their own brand destinies and save valuable financial resources.
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