★ ★ ★ ★ ★ What clients say
"Vanguard rebuilt our creative pipeline. We went from 3 ads a month to 30, and ROAS climbed every cycle."
Lara Schmidt
CMO, Lumen Studio Berlin
"They treat creative as the lever, not the afterthought. That is why their accounts scale."
Tomas Andersen
Founder, Norden Apparel
"Best paid social team in Europe. Period. They paid for themselves in the first month."
Friederike Holm
CEO, Halm Skincare
Vanguard Creative logo

Vanguard Creative

Brand-led short-form for European DTC challengers

Berlin, Germany · Creative direction + paid social production

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Categories: Content agencies Paid ads agencies E-commerce specialists
38+
Clients served
5
Years active
3.9x
Average ROI
EUR 26M+ tracked
Revenue generated
140k+ purchases
Leads delivered
17
Active retainers

About Vanguard Creative

Vanguard Creative builds brand systems and the creative pipelines to deploy them. They work with European DTC challengers who refuse to look like every other Shopify store.

What sets them apart

Vanguard rejects the standard split between brand agency and performance shop. They build the brand system - typography, motion language, photography direction, voice - then execute the short-form creative inside that system at performance volume. Every account gets a brand operating manual that works as both a Figma file and an ad-creative checklist, so a 6-second TikTok and a YouTube pre-roll feel like the same brand. Most clients are European DTC brands that have outgrown the generic Shopify-store look but cannot afford a separate brand consultancy and a separate paid social agency.

Industries served

  • DTC
  • Fashion
  • Tech

Services

  • Creative direction
  • Production
  • Paid social
  • Brand strategy

Case studies

Real client engagements with measurable outcomes.

Eyewear brand rebrand + 2.4x ROAS lift in 4 months

Eyewear / DTC

Client: Linde Eyewear

1.6x to 3.8x ROAS
+28% AOV
two industry features

Challenge

A 5-year-old German eyewear brand was generic-looking, blending into a saturated DTC eyewear market. ROAS had drifted to 1.6x and the founder was unwilling to compete on price.

Approach

Delivered a brand system in 6 weeks (new wordmark, motion language, photography direction). Then ran 80 short-form creatives per month inside that system, all visually distinct from competitors. Built a Shopify theme rebuild matching the brand, with a try-at-home flow as the hero CTA.

Result

ROAS climbed from 1.6x to 3.8x in 4 months. AOV grew 28% as premium framing replaced discount-led messaging. Brand earned a "best-in-class DTC design" feature in two industry publications.

Coffee subscription scaled from EUR 30k to EUR 280k MRR

F&B subscription

Client: Kreuzberg Coffee Co.

9.3x MRR growth
14% to 6.2% churn
~3x LTV

Challenge

A Berlin specialty coffee subscription was stuck at EUR 30k MRR for 11 months. Creative was photogenic but generic, and churn was 14% monthly which capped growth.

Approach

Repositioned the brand around "third-wave at home" with a new visual system emphasizing barista craft. Shipped 60 ad variants/month featuring real Berlin baristas brewing the product. Built a flavor-quiz onboarding to reduce mismatch churn.

Result

MRR grew from EUR 30k to EUR 280k in 11 months. Monthly churn fell from 14% to 6.2%. Subscriber LTV nearly tripled.

Skincare brand: brand-led TikTok creative beats UGC by 2.1x ROAS

Skincare

Client: Mauer Skincare

4.2x vs 2.0x ROAS
+25 pts sentiment
70/30 winning split

Challenge

A premium skincare brand had been told to "just run UGC" by their previous agency. Six months of low-fi UGC delivered 2.0x ROAS and brand felt cheapened in the comments.

Approach

Built a brand-led short-form system: studio-quality but vertical-native, with motion graphics, branded type animations, and consistent music. Tested directly against a UGC control group on the same creative budget for 8 weeks.

Result

Brand-led creative delivered 4.2x ROAS vs 2.0x for UGC. Brand sentiment in comments improved measurably (sentiment-tagged from 56% positive to 81%). Brand kept a 70/30 split favoring branded content.

Meet the team

The people who'll be running your account. Names with are Inflowave-verified.

SK

Stefan Krause

Founder & Performance Lead · 10y exp

Built Vanguard after scaling two Berlin DTC brands past 8 figures. Focuses on creative-led paid social for European DTC.

LinkedIn
YO

Yasmin Ozdemir

Creative Strategy Director · 9y exp

Translates performance data into ad creative briefs. Former art director at a Berlin streetwear label.

LinkedIn
KL

Kasper Lindgren

Senior Media Buyer · 8y exp

Manages 7-figure monthly Meta and TikTok spend across Vanguard's DTC roster. Ex in-house at a Nordic beauty brand.

LinkedIn

Qualifications & certifications

Meta

Meta Business Partner

Meta · 2023

TikTok

TikTok Marketing Partner

TikTok · 2024

Shopify

Shopify Plus Partner

Shopify · 2024

Inflowave

Inflowave Verified Agency

Inflowave · 2026

Notable clients

  • Kreuzberg Coffee Co.
  • Linde Eyewear
  • Ostpost Stationery
  • Mauer Skincare
  • Tagwerk Ceramics

Want to work with Vanguard Creative?

Reach out directly at hello@example-vanguardcreative.com or visit their website to start a conversation.

Visit Vanguard Creative →