While the pandemic created havoc for experiential marketing firms—including the one Drury worked at for 19 years—the Great Resignation and rise in gig work showed a new way forward, Drury said. In-person events, he was convinced, would eventually make their way back.
“I think in a lot of ways, the conditions for starting an agency were strong,” said Drury. “There was less I was walking away from. It was kind of like, a roll of the dice might not be the worst thing right now, because this other scenario isn’t working out the way it should be. I remember thinking at the time that [the experiential marketing industry] is not good now. But I felt very, very confident that events were going to bounce back.”
Drury crafted Cartwheel to minimize the pitfalls of what he called “top-heavy and slow” agencies that tended to chase revenue goals and take on less profitable projects than they should. Cartwheel is fully remote, and scaled quickly by capitalizing on the glut of freelancers to execute marketing programs with oversight from the team. This “accordion team,” Drury said, offers the scale of a mid-sized agency without committing to dozens of employees.
“Because of our size, we have taken it to a bit of an extreme, but I think every experiential agency is doing some version of what we’re doing today,” Drury said.
Cartwheel’s projects in 2022 included an Emmy nomination drive for Amazon Prime. One element was a fan experience event that created a replica of 1960 New York depicted in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”—in Los Angeles. Partnerships with quintessential New York brands such as Russ & Daughters bagel shop and The Blue Note jazz club brought true authenticity.