Coast Creative sells the work behind the scroll

A sandwich shop gives away two electric bikes. People enter by the thousands. Somewhere between the lunch order and the prize draw, somebody has to make the posters, organize the promotion and give the whole thing a personality. That is the territory Coast Creative occupies: the work that makes a business worth noticing, then keeps it visible after the first burst of attention fades.

The San Diego agency has the expected vocabulary of modern marketing: strategy, content, engagement. Its projects are more revealing. They involve sandwiches, walking canes, hotel stays and snack bars. These are businesses with things to sell in the physical world, looking for a convincing life on a screen. Coast’s proposition is to handle enough of the intervening work that the owner does not have to become a production manager.

Two bikes, 8,339 entries

For Board & Brew, that work included a collaboration with Ecker Design Company on merchandise, posters and a brand refresh. Ecker’s account describes a summer sweepstakes awarding two limited-edition Super73 ZX e-bikes. The promotional designs appeared online and in person. The collaborator reports 8,339 entries.

It is a pleasingly specific number, with a specific meaning: contest entries. A giveaway attracts people interested in the prize; the next commercial question is what those people do afterward. The useful creative detail is the connection between the shop and the feed. The same promotion could meet a customer while ordering lunch and again while scrolling. A campaign has a better chance of being remembered when its pieces look related.

This is an agency buying problem disguised as a sandwich promotion. A business can commission individual assets from separate people. Someone still has to make the decisions join up. Coast’s appeal lies in taking responsibility for that coordination, particularly for companies whose marketing department is small enough that another supplier also means another meeting.

The middle seat in the agency market

Susan Rapaglia, a Coast co-owner, describes the original opportunity as the gap between generic, inexpensive marketing and expensive agencies with limited flexibility. In her 2025 Shoutout SoCal interview, she names single-location restaurants, boutique hotels, small hospitality groups and emerging brands as the early audience. The ambition was tailored work within manageable budgets.

That positioning explains the mix of customers better than a broad claim to serve every industry. Coast’s published roster includes Talitha Coffee, Moxy San Diego, Little Italy Food Hall, Ocean Eyes Optometry and Space for Humanity. A hotel, an optometry practice and a nonprofit ask people to take different actions. Each still needs someone to explain what it offers clearly and consistently.

The agency’s homepage says it has served more than 400 clients and participated in more than 50 openings and launches. Those are cumulative experience claims, rather than a count of accounts being managed today. Its featured work stretches from KiZE protein bars’ retail expansion to influencer collaborations and event promotion for Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines.

The competitive choice is often practical: hire a marketer, assemble freelancers, engage a specialist studio or give several jobs to one agency. Coast sits in that last camp. Its case depends on whether the client benefits from having the people who plan the work close to the people who produce and distribute it.

A running back takes a different meeting

There is an unexpected name in the ownership story. Jonathan Stewart, whose NFL career included the Carolina Panthers and New York Giants, went into business with childhood friend Tony Rapaglia. Coast’s company materials identify the pair as co-founders and date the business to 2018.

Front Office Sports reported in December 2019 that Rapaglia, then coming from Oracle, approached Stewart about an opportunity to acquire a marketing firm. Stewart saw the business as a way to understand other industries and encounter investment opportunities. A Coast client, replica-locker company LockerSource, became an example of a relationship extending into another business interest.

“I’ve learned about other businesses, how restaurants and startups are run”

Jonathan Stewart · Front Office Sports, 2019

That is a less predictable second career than trading entirely on athletic celebrity. A marketing firm gets invited into the machinery of other companies: what is being launched, who might buy it, what the owners hope will happen next. Stewart’s account suggests that those conversations were part of the attraction. The agency was also an education in how businesses operate.

A cane gets a day in the sun

Coast’s Cane Masters assignment shows the production side with unusual clarity. The mobility-accessory company needed images and video for new women’s canes and additional men’s styles. The brief centered on active women over 60 and a visual identity associated with confidence and style.

The agency handled creative direction, shot lists, Del Mar location scouting, casting and coordination. Photography and video were captured during a full-day shoot. The resulting library was planned for websites, paid advertising, organic social media and print. Models were selected to reflect the intended audience.

The detail to copy is the order of decisions. Choose the audience and the uses before making the pictures. A beautiful frame is less useful if it cannot accommodate an advertising crop or the text on a web page. Thinking about those destinations early gives a production day more jobs to do.

This also requires cooperation from the buyer. The team needs a clear product brief and decisions about who should appear in the campaign. Adding another intended use afterward can change the assets required. Production planning works best when the client has settled the questions that photography cannot answer.

The price of a post is a slippery thing

Coast sells work through recurring retainers and individual projects. Its menu includes social account management, photography and video, creator coordination, advertising, branding and websites. A business can buy a specific piece of production or ask for continuing support. Three-month launch plans offer a defined planning period for an opening or product introduction.

One public proposal prepared for Café Knotted supplies a more unusual cost example. Coast says a Rubicon Deli Reel reached nearly 90,000 shares and cost the client $0 for the agency to make, edit and post. It also says the post received no paid boost. That is a claim about this particular piece of work; it should not be read as the cost of running the account or paying the people involved.

The proposal points to timely use of a video trend, trending audio, a looping format and an established posting cadence. It also explicitly rejects the idea that a video is guaranteed to take off. The actionable lesson is preparation: keep producing, recognize a suitable format and be ready to execute. Budgeting around a repeat of one exceptional outcome would be a very different proposition.

For a prospective client, the sensible unit of comparison is the agreed scope. How many assets, how many revisions, which channels, and who handles publishing? Separate the agency’s work from any media spend or other production expenses when reviewing a proposal. Otherwise two apparently comparable prices can describe quite different assignments.

When keeping the team meant taking another job

The pandemic changed the calculation inside the business. Susan Rapaglia says Tony returned to corporate work to provide stability so the agency would not have to lay people off. She was on leave, and they had a three-year-old and a newborn. Earlier, he had left a secure sales role to help establish the company.

“He saw the potential long before I did,” she said. Her account makes the trade-off tangible: the company’s continuity depended partly on changing how the family earned its income. It is a useful corrective to the habit of treating a founder’s uninterrupted commitment to one job as the only respectable entrepreneurial path.

The current team page gives a view of how the work is divided: account managers, social coordinators, an influencer manager, a head of social and a director of client success. Coast describes its approach as building long-term client relationships and prioritizing business outcomes. The roles make that promise more concrete than the language alone.

Somebody has to own the calendar

A current Coast hiring brief makes the operational demands explicit. Its hybrid San Diego marketing-manager role includes turning client objectives into briefs, overseeing calendars, coordinating creative colleagues, managing timelines and budgets, and explaining performance. Candidates are expected to bring at least three years of experience.

That combination is the agency business in miniature. Ideas have to survive deadlines, approvals and competing demands. The person who can suggest an appealing campaign also needs to know which assets are missing and when somebody will approve them. For a client, reliable organization can be as valuable as the initial concept.

The reasonable way to evaluate Coast is to bring a real assignment: a restaurant opening, a product collection, a seasonal hotel offer. Ask how the team would plan it, what it would deliver and what result would count as progress. A company with an already capable internal team may need only a shoot. A business struggling to coordinate the whole process may value a broader engagement.

A sandwich sweepstakes and a carefully cast cane campaign look different because they should. The common work is making choices about audience, setting, format and follow-through. Coast Creative has built its offering around doing those jobs together. The scroll is where the audience sees the result. The calendar is where much of the business happens.