Can’t get your employees to think "outside of the box?" How about putting markers in their hands and asking them to write ideas on each other?

Play is a "creative agency" that fuses business and creativity, developing strategies to move a company forward. Siblings Andy Stefanovich and Christine Rochester (a k a In Charge of What’s Next and Ambassador respectively) founded the company in 1990 as an event-planning firm. It evolved into an idea-development company five years ago.

Development of marketing plans, branding and name recognition, escorting a company through a cultural change, and launching new products all fit under Play’s creative services umbrella. But Hammond stresses that they are not a public relations or advertising firm. Remaining "media neutral," Play leaves the legwork of promotion alone, he says.

With clients as far away as Toronto and Madrid, the company recently opened an office in New York. Their client list is adorned with major players such as The Timberland Co., a Stratham, N.H.-based shoe designer and manufacturer, Atlanta-based TBS Superstation and Scott & Stringfellow, a Richmond-based investment banking firm.