Best Creative Agencies in Minneapolis (2026)

Introduction

Minneapolis has one of the larger agency markets in the US outside the coasts, and the 9 creative agencies below are among its strongest independents and integrated idea shops in 2026. They were chosen for recent work, 2025 and 2026 recognition, and the strength of their client rosters.

The Twin Cities market is built on Fortune 500 headquarters and consumer brands, including Target, Best Buy, General Mills, 3M and Land O’Lakes, and many of those companies run in-house teams alongside their agencies. Several familiar names have changed in recent years. Stagwell combined Colle McVoy and Doner as DonerColle Partners in January 2026, Quad folded Periscope into Betty, and the agency long known as Preston Kelly now trades as Meerkat. Independents did well on the national stage, with Ad Age naming broadhead a 2026 Small Agency of the Year in July.

Every agency here has an active Minneapolis office in 2026. The list runs in no fixed order of merit, since the right choice depends on your brief, budget and how you like to work. Network offices are covered in our advertising agencies list.

The best creative agencies in Minneapolis

1. Colle McVoy

Stagwell (DonerColle Partners) · North Loop · collemcvoy.com

Colle McVoy is a Minneapolis creative agency and Certified B Corp, led by CEO Jessica Henrichs and chief creative officer Mariana O’Kelly. In January 2026 Stagwell brought it together with Detroit’s Doner as DonerColle Partners, a group of more than 500 people across Minneapolis, Detroit and Chicago in which both agencies keep their own identities and client relationships. It is a 2026 Fast Company Most Innovative honoree and made Adweek’s 2025 Midsize Agency of the Year shortlist.

The client list is broad and heavy on American consumer brands: La-Z-Boy, Dairy Queen, McCormick, Perdue, Target and 3M, where a Scotch ProSharp project marked 100 years of painter’s tape innovation. Visit Durango has named it agency of record. Combined branding is being phased in through 2026, so ask how the partnership affects your account team.

2. Zeus Jones

Independent · South Minneapolis · zeusjones.com

Zeus Jones describes itself as a strategy, creative and design agency, and it has stayed independent since it started. It is a Certified B Corp and a member of Nostos, a group of independent agencies around the world. Its newest offering, the Living Brand Studio, is an AI-enabled brand system that holds a company’s principles and decision logic, with most core builds taking 8 to 12 weeks.

The work often starts earlier than a campaign brief. Projects include the Ecolab global rebrand, Spark by Hilton, the Ulta Beauty at Target experience, Nike’s Coaching for Belonging, Minnesota United FC and Nerds Candy. It suits companies that want brand strategy and creative from the same team.

3. Meerkat

Independent, employee-owned · Minneapolis · hellomeerkat.com

Meerkat is the new name of Preston Spire, the agency previously known as Preston Kelly, and it counts 76 years of independence. Its 2026 awards list is strong for its size: wins at the Ad Age A-List and Creativity Awards for Best Work for Good and Tiny but Mighty, a Communication Arts Advertising Annual win, and AdFed golds for Project Lockdown, its gun lock stand project. Ad Age ranked it third on its 2025 Best Places to Work list.

Meet Minneapolis, the city’s destination marketing organisation, appointed the agency in June 2026, with a destination rebrand expected in early 2027. Other clients include UCare, NoDoz, InSinkErator, Precision Tune Auto Care and YMCA of the North, and the agency has a long record of work for good causes such as Second Harvest Heartland.

4. Rise and Shine and Partners

Independent · North Loop · riseandshineandpartners.com

Rise and Shine and Partners calls itself a brand navigation agency, covering strategy, creative and media, and it is run by a group of seven partners with Kevin DiLorenzo as CEO and Matt Burgess as chief creative officer. Its site cites three listings on Adweek’s fastest growing agencies and Ad Age recognition in both 2025 and 2026.

“Žanis’ Story: Hidden No More”, a VR experience about surviving the Holocaust made for the Žanis Lipke Memorial in Rīga, was named Campaign of the Year: Experiential at the 2026 Ad Age Small Agency Awards. Commercial clients include Lunds & Byerlys, Supercuts, PING, Original Louisiana Hot Sauce and the Minnesota Zoo.

5. broadhead.

Independent · North Loop · broadheadco.com

broadhead. is a full-service agency of about 145 people, independent since Dean Broadhead founded it in 2001, with further offices in Charlotte and Delafield, Wisconsin. Ad Age named it a 2026 Small Agency of the Year in July, and Dean Broadhead made Adweek’s AI Power 50. The agency also took two 4As Jay Chiat Awards and two Shorty Awards for Sunkist work in 2026.

It concentrates on brands in food, movement and everyday life, with a method that draws on anthropology and data science. Clients include Sunkist (the agency reports a 29% sales lift from a locally tailored campaign), Boehringer Ingelheim, Thomas Built Buses, Norfolk Southern and Mips. Its animal health and transport work makes it worth a look for B2B briefs.

6. space150

Independent · Warehouse District · space150.com

space150 has worked as a digital and technology-led creative agency since Billy Jurewicz founded it in 2000, and he remains CEO. It stays independent, with offices in Minneapolis and Venice, California, and team members across 11 US states. The company is known for changing its own visual identity every 150 days.

Clients include Beats by Dre, Twitch, CapCut, Hasbro Games and Boston Scientific’s Endura Weight Loss Solutions, with services spanning social, creative, media, branding and AI. There is a dedicated healthcare and medtech practice, which matters in a city with Medtronic and a large device industry nearby.

7. Agency Squid

Independent · South Minneapolis · agencysquid.com

Agency Squid launched in Minneapolis in 2016 and took Gold in the advertising and marketing category of Twin Cities Business’s 2026 Best of Business awards. It is a small team, with eight employees reported by that publication, working across strategy, identity, campaigns and content. The agency also launches and runs its own brands, which shapes how it thinks about commercial results.

Beverage and consumer goods are the core: White Claw, Mike’s Hard, Cayman Jack, Silver Oak, Summit Brewing, Prairie Organic and Reed’s sit on the roster, alongside Sun Country Airlines, Costa Farms and U.S. Bank. With a team this size, check capacity early for anything that needs several workstreams at once.

8. SixSpeed

Independent · Minneapolis · sixspeed.com

SixSpeed was founded in 2009 and describes itself as an independent, full-service agency that reclaimed its independence after earlier ownership. Kevin Reilly is president and CEO, and co-founder Grant Johnson is chief creative officer. It has recently added PR services to creative, media and analytics.

The agency works well with brands that have an adventurous streak: Polaris, Yuengling, Minelab and Batteries Plus all feature in its work, as does American Public Media Group. Its site also cites floating a skatepark down the Mississippi River, which gives a fair sense of its taste in live and experiential ideas.

9. CCF

Independent · Downtown Minneapolis · ccf-ideas.com

CCF, founded as Clarity Coverdale Fury in 1979, is an independent full-service agency built around behaviour change, using strategy, creative, media and analytics. Rob Rankin is president and CEO, and Jim Landry is executive creative director. Recent recognition includes five Healthcare Advertising GOLD Awards and Northern Lights Awards for its Quit Partner work.

Health is the main strength, with Medtronic, UnitedHealthcare, Altru Health System, Mayo Clinic Care Network and the Minnesota Department of Health on the client list. Outside healthcare it has worked with Minnesota United FC, Metro Transit and Wings Credit Union, whose relaunch it credits with record membership growth. Public-sector and health briefs with a measurable behaviour goal suit it well.

What to look for in a Minneapolis creative agency

Start with ownership. Eight of the 9 agencies above are independent, and senior people there tend to stay close to the work. Colle McVoy sits inside a larger group (Stagwell), which brings media and production scale along with more shared process. After the 2026 consolidation in this market, it is reasonable to ask what any group structure means for your account.

Look for experience in your category. Minneapolis agencies have deep benches in food and beverage, outdoor and recreation, retail, and medtech and healthcare, because those companies are based nearby. An agency that has worked in your category will need less onboarding, though it may also hold conflicts with a competitor, so raise that early.

Ask how the agency works with in-house teams. Target and many other Twin Cities companies run their own creative departments, and agency work often has to plug into those groups. Find out who owns the strategy, who produces the assets and who signs off, and whether the agency has worked this way before.

Finally, look at the day-to-day: where files live, how feedback is gathered and how approvals are tracked. Small teams can lose a lot of time to version confusion across email threads and shared drives, and clients with in-house creative add another layer of reviewers. A clear review process, with one place to find the latest work, makes a long relationship easier on both sides.

How Fabric helps creative agency teams

Fabric gives an agency one workspace for its files, client feedback and team knowledge, with AI search across all of it. The agency setup suits shops running several accounts at once: one space per client, with briefs, assets, decks and call notes kept together.

Large production files sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and editors and designers can open heavy files without a full download. Search works by meaning across documents, images and transcribed recordings, with results that jump to the right page or timestamp, and colour search finds visual assets by shade.

Client feedback runs through shared links. Share a file or folder with the client as a commenter (no sign-up needed), and they can leave timestamped comments on video and audio, draw on a video frame or an image and attach a comment, and highlight text in PDFs and documents. The team marks each comment completed as it is dealt with, so a review round works like a checklist. Threaded comments and @mentions keep the conversation on the file itself.

For finished work, any file or folder can be published as a web page, view-only and with optional download, and protected with a password. Link analytics shows when each named recipient opened a link and how long they spent with it, which helps with pitch decks.

On Team plans, self-writing docs can maintain a page for each client from meetings, Slack and the workspace, covering decisions, deliverables and open items. Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans, and self-writing docs on Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best creative agency in Minneapolis?

There is no single answer, as the right agency depends on the brief. On 2026 recognition, broadhead. was named an Ad Age Small Agency of the Year, Colle McVoy was a Fast Company Most Innovative honoree, and Rise and Shine and Partners won Campaign of the Year: Experiential at the Ad Age Small Agency Awards.

Why are Fallon and Carmichael Lynch not on this list?

Both are active in Minneapolis in 2026, but this list concentrates on independents and integrated idea shops. Fallon is part of Publicis Groupe and Carmichael Lynch is part of Omnicom following its acquisition of IPG, so they fit better in our list of advertising agencies in Minneapolis.

What happened to Preston Kelly and Periscope?

Preston Kelly became Preston Spire and now trades as Meerkat, still independent and employee-owned. Periscope, which Quad bought in 2018, was absorbed into Quad’s creative agency Betty in 2024. Betty appears on our advertising agencies list.

What is DonerColle Partners?

It is the Stagwell partnership of Colle McVoy and Doner, announced in January 2026. The two agencies keep their own identities and client relationships, with combined operations and branding phased in during 2026.

Which Minneapolis creative agencies are independent?

Of the agencies on this list, Zeus Jones, Meerkat, Rise and Shine and Partners, broadhead., space150, Agency Squid, SixSpeed and CCF all describe themselves as independent. Meerkat is also employee-owned.

Related lists

Creative agencies in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

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