You’re probably wondering what would possess a marketing agency to use the word “über” in its name.

Mic Tienken started this company back in 2008 as Über Web Services. At that time, the globally renowned ride-sharing service was a mere twinkle in Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick’s eyes.* We were primarily a web design and web development agency.

Mic wanted his company’s brand identity to convey his promise to his customers — that he was the best at what he did. In German,  über means over, beyond, above. In the United States, the word über was still rather uncommon, and mainly used to describe nerdy people, e.g.,  “über-geeks.” 

A few months after incorporating the agency, Mic started getting phone calls in the middle of the night from inebriated people wondering where their driver was. This went on for about a year before he learned about the Über ride-sharing service. Mystery solved!

Besides website development, the company’s specialty was search engine optimization (SEO). To prove that Über was the best at optimizing keywords for organic search, Mic developed a “smartest person in the world” web page, which appeared at the top of Google search when people searched for those keywords. It brought in a lot of SEO business and sustained the company for several years.**

Mic shuttered Über Web Services in 2012 after he was lured away by a privately held company to develop loyalty and marketing solutions for the world’s best-known brands. Over the past two decades, he and Barb worked together on many marketing projects and discovered they have an extremely complimentary skillset.

In the summer of 2020, Barb and Mic found themselves working independently again. When they first talked about starting a business, it made sense to re-form as Über Creative Agency, despite the obvious challenges with the name. Some day, the company may rebrand. Until then, the name works just fine.,