What Barefoot does

Barefoot, LLC is a Cincinnati-based brand experience agency founded in 1994 by Doug Worple and operating today as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Omnicom Group Inc. (via the Proximity Worldwide acquisition). The firm serves Fortune 500 enterprise clients across consumer packaged goods (P&G, Mars), agriculture (Bayer Crop Science), energy (ExxonMobil), healthcare (Cincinnati Children's, Philips, Ascension, United Therapeutics), pet health (Elanco/Seresto), financial services (First Financial), and select growth-stage tech (Voyager). It delivers integrated marketing services organized around four practice pillars—Experience Strategy, Integrated Media, Experience Design, and Marketing Science—and operates a distributed U.S. hub model across Cincinnati, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

Underlying Barefoot's service offering is a portfolio of proprietary platforms. Omni is an audience insights and marketing orchestration tool that builds demographic micro-segments and channel-indexed nano-segments for campaign targeting. SmartEngine is a personalized recommendation engine, originally built for Bayer Crop Science, that connects loyalty-program data (e.g., Bayer PLUS) to customized product recommendations by location and crop profile. Ag MMM is a Marketing Mix Modeling service purpose-built for agricultural clients, using regression analysis to quantify marketing investment-to-sales correlation. Dynamic Creative Optimization is an automated system that generates hundreds of personalized display ad variants against audience segments. Barefoot has also built client-dedicated platforms such as the P&G Good Everyday multi-brand CRM, which scaled to millions of members and 18 million+ acts of good.

The business model is professional services, project-based and retainer-based engagements with enterprise clients on multi-year contract cadence; pricing is quote-driven and not publicly disclosed. Go-to-market is sales-led, executed through a dedicated Chief Client Officer (Margarita Fitzpatrick) and SVP of Business Development (Danielle Aldrich), with client acquisition relationship-driven and supported by Omnicom network referrals. Current leadership includes President Kristen Hitch, COO Amy Austin, CSO James Trumble, CCO Andrew Carlson, and Chief Client Officer Margarita Fitzpatrick.

Name

Barefoot

Legal name

Barefoot, LLC

Website

https://thinkbarefoot.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1994

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Barefoot is a Cincinnati-based, Omnicom-owned brand experience agency serving Fortune 500 enterprises in CPG, agriculture, healthcare, energy, and financial services with integrated marketing strategy, media, creative, and proprietary data-driven platforms including Omni and SmartEngine.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Cincinnati

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Professional Services - Integrated Marketing: Barefoot generates revenue through integrated marketing services including experience strategy, experience design, integrated media planning/buying, and marketing science. Services are delivered as project-based or retainer engagements to enterprise clients, with pricing based on scope, team size, and campaign complexity.
2. CRM and Platform Development: Revenue from developing and managing multibrand CRM platforms and digital experiences for clients, including ongoing platform management and optimization services.
3. Marketing Analytics and Consulting: Marketing science services including Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), analytics reporting, measurement strategy, and optimization consulting to help clients quantify marketing impact on sales.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Barefoot is a brand experience agency that delivers integrated marketing services across four pillars: Experience Strategy, Experience Design, Integrated Media, and Marketing Science. The firm combines these service lines with proprietary technology platforms (Omni, SmartEngine™, Ag MMM, and Dynamic Creative Optimization) to plan, execute, and measure brand experiences for Fortune 500 enterprise clients. Services are delivered through fee-based engagements (project and retainer) by teams based in Cincinnati, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

Product overview

Barefoot is a brand experience agency within the Omnicom holding company that offers an integrated suite of marketing services organized around four core pillars: Experience Strategy (audience identification, brand strategy, customer experience management), Integrated Media (traditional and digital media planning/buying), Experience Design (campaign development, content studio, dynamic creative optimization), and Marketing Science (analytics, measurement, SEO, marketing mix modeling). The agency also delivers specialized proprietary platforms including Omni (audience insights and marketing orchestration), SmartEngine™ (personalized recommendation engine), Ag MMM (agricultural marketing mix modeling), and Dynamic Creative Optimization. For specific clients, Barefoot has also built dedicated platforms like P&G Good Everyday (a multibrand CRM and loyalty platform).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Ag MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling): Agricultural Marketing Mix Modeling service - a regression analysis tool to identify correlation between marketing investment and sales for agricultural clients

Products and services

• Experience Strategy Strategic consulting service that defines brand positioning, audience insights, and experience-led marketing roadmaps for enterprise brand clients.
• Experience Design Creative and design service that develops brand experiences, content, and creative concepts across paid, owned, and earned channels for enterprise brand marketers.
• Integrated Media Media planning and buying service that delivers media strategy, activation, and real-time optimization across channels for enterprise brand clients.
• Marketing Science Analytics and measurement service that applies marketing mix modeling (Ag MMM) and data-driven insights to evaluate and improve brand and campaign performance.

Quantifiable outcome

• 21%+ sales increase for Bayer Crop Science growers using SmartEngine
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers15 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Omnicom GroupflagshipOthersBarefoot operates as a brand experience agency within the Omnicom holding company. The agency was acquired by Proximity Worldwide, which is part of Omnicom Group. This relationship provides Barefoot access to Omnicom's global network resources, client referrals, and enterprise relationships.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• GALE: GALE is a data-driven, technology-enabled brand experience agency serving Fortune 500 enterprise clients — closely aligned with Barefoot's model of fusing proprietary data tooling with creative campaigns.
• Huge: Huge is an experience design agency building digital products, platforms, and brand experiences for enterprise — comparable to Barefoot's Experience Design pillar and CRM/platform development offerings.
• Digitas: Digitas is a Connected Marketing agency within Publicis that integrates data, technology, creative, and media for enterprise clients — a near-parallel model to Barefoot's four-pillar structure.
• Hearts & Science: Hearts & Science is an Omnicom-owned data-driven media agency with audience-centric planning capabilities — a sibling peer sharing Omnicom distribution and competing for the same outcome-based media briefs.
• R/GA: R/GA is an experience design and brand innovation agency combining creative, technology, and data — closely mirroring Barefoot's 'art plus science, integrated platform' positioning for Fortune 500 clients.
• MediaMonks (Monks): Monks is a S4 Capital-owned digital production and creative services agency offering integrated content, data, and media — comparable to Barefoot's integrated media and experience design capabilities.
• VML: VML (formed from Wunderman + JWT) is a global brand experience agency combining data, technology, and creative for enterprise clients including CPG majors — directly comparable in offering and client overlap.

Broad incumbents

• McCann: McCann is a global creative network within IPG that serves many of the same Fortune 500 advertisers (P&G, Bayer, Mars, ExxonMobil) as Barefoot, but at significantly larger scale and broader geographic footprint.
• Leo Burnett: Leo Burnett is a Publicis creative network with deep CPG heritage and overlapping clients (P&G, Mars) — a broader incumbent competing for the same enterprise brand experience mandates as Barefoot.

Emerging players

• AdFarm: AdFarm is an agriculture-focused marketing agency, making it the closest vertical peer to Barefoot's ag specialization (Ag MMM, SmartEngine for Bayer) — though smaller and narrower in offering.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/bprox
• Facebookfacebook.com/bprox
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/barefoot-proximity

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Barefoot