The Martin Agency CEO Kristen Cavallo was thrust into the spotlight early last year when she responded to a series of tweets from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. In the tweets, Armstrong seemed to take credit for the brand's QR-based Super Bowl ad, claiming “no ad agency would have done this ad.” Cavallo's response: “Except an ad agency did do that ad.”
With those eight words, Cavallo became an unintentional hero for an ad industry feeling beaten down and disrespected on many fronts.
“It was the dissing of the industry that I think is like a cancer and it not only feeds a client's perspective of the value of advertising, but it feeds the industry's perspective of its self-worth,” said Cavallo, adding that she would do the same thing all over again. “That affects the talent that we're able to attract and the ideas that we come up with.”
Since then, Martin has become somewhat of a beacon for the ad industry. The shop reported the second-best growth year in its 57-year history, posting a 30% revenue increase in 2022, which included 40% organic growth from existing clients and seven new accounts. It lost only Coinbase, which the agency declined to re-pitch.
And in an industry that seems to continuously see agency-of-record opportunities disappear in favor of shorter-term projects, Martin is one of the few shops that has AOR relationships with the majority of its clients.
“We look at projects with a really discerning eye because they always have to be replaced and we certainly don't pitch for projects,” said Cavallo, who is now also global CEO of Interpublic Group of Cos. sibling agency MullenLowe Group. “We're looking to develop relationships with people, because the truth is business ebbs and flows. I think one of the reasons we did so well in a year of COVID was because we had AOR relationships; we didn't have to stop and wait for a brief.”
This is part of the agency’s philosophy, “following people over brands,” according to Michael Chapman, Martin’s chief client officer.
“The philosophy has always been to stay in touch with the best marketers in the business and wait for them to be in places that maybe don't always have the best and then go and make something that sets the world on fire,” Chapman said.
Last year the shop fired up agency of record responsibilities for Legal Shield, Royal Caribbean and Santander without having to pitch due to having prior relationships.
“We know who we are and what we stand for, and that leads us to knowing what kind of clients we need to go after,” said Danny Robinson, chief creative officer at Martin. “Once you have those two things … selling [ideas] isn't necessarily the hardest thing.”
The agency’s most notable win came when it was named AOR for Bud Light line extensions including Bud Light Seltzer and zero-calorie Bud Light Next. Since then, the agency added the vodka seltzer brand Nutrl to its remit.
The Bud Light pitch was led by Jerry Hoak, an executive creative director at Martin, according to Cavallo, who said the agency welcomed ideas on the brief from the whole agency and received more than 200 at one point.
“The brief was very specific, but Jerry was like, ‘I think we should give them an appendix that's 100 ideas for 100 days,’” said Cavallo—which is what Martin did.
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Benoit Garbe, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s U.S. chief marketing officer, says the challenge for the brand was the fact that people were confusing its seltzer brands with beer brands. Garbe said what stood out about Martin during the review process was its transparency and “simple” yet “laser-focused” approach to building brands.
“When they met with us they were very transparent and said consumers don’t remember 84% of advertising,” Garbe said. “And they shared their philosophy, which is we need to be very clear on the enemy, which can be a competitor or category, be super sharp on what we stand for, and be crystal clear on what we stand against.”
Another aspect that stood out for Garbe when looking at Martin’s other clients was its ability to balance creativity and strategy and remain consistent in terms of a brand’s message.
“I do believe the biggest challenge [in marketing] is the fragmentation of media and fragmentation of experiences. So the more cohesive you are, the more likely you're going to leave a mark or an imprint in the consumer's mind,” Garbe said. “It’s about being comfortable as a creative to do the same [brand messaging] for the next five years … I think it takes a lot of self-confidence in who you are … and it takes a lot of self-control.”
“Too often there is a quest of what's next, what's trendy and how do I reinvent myself,” Garbe continued. “While it sometimes keeps marketers and agencies excited, often it's not good for the brand and it's not necessarily good for consumers who are not keeping track of who you are as a brand and what you stand for.”
A big point of difference for the CMOs interviewed for this piece is the fact that they are able to quickly reach Cavallo and Robinson when needed.
“The way the relationship is structured is that it's not through a one-way door,” said Damon Burrell, who was named Geico’s CMO last April. “I've worked with other agencies before where you have that one account person and every single thing has to go through that one person. And then there's one person on the client side and everything goes through those two people.”
Cavallo says the agency makes it a point to have members of its executive committee regularly speak to its clients without the agenda of trying to sell them an idea.
“I’ve seen in agency pitches, there's a certain team that shows up, and then the team that you end up with three months later is a completely different group and that's not where the chemistry was established,” Burrell said.
Beyond new business, Martin showcased a breadth of work that stretched beyond the TV spots for which it is known.
To help TIAA highlight the fact that women retire with 30% less than men, which amounts to $1.6 million in potential retirement savings they’re missing out on, Martin enlisted the help of designer Fe Noel to make a 16-foot-long dress made out of $1.6 million in artificial bills that was highlighted during Fashion Week in New York City.
“Their superpower for us has been finding ways to make a relatively small amount of money go a very long way,” TIAA’s CMO and Chief Communications Officer Micky Onvural said. “They've been able to find creative ways to spark conversation.”
In just 48 hours the activation received more than 1.3 billion impressions. It also notched a 61% increase in share of voice and a 300% increase in the number of people who decided to sign up for TIAA retirement advice sessions.
UPS challenged Martin with changing the perception of the carrier to be more appealing to small business owners and Gen Z. So Martin launched two limited-edition clothing lines for UPS during two separate Fashion Week events, one of which included a Bodega-inspired activation. Both pieces of work included donations to Black and Latino communities from the proceeds.
The agency also redesigned UPS express boxes to support Latino-, AAPI- and women-owned small businesses and helped the brand show up in ComplexLand’s metaverse and festivals such as Pharell Williams’ Something in the Water event.
The agency was an early adopter of the name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals that are becoming more popular across college sports. Martin launched “The Overtime Deal” for Buffalo Wild Wings, the first-ever NIL sponsorship exclusively for players who sent games into overtime during college basketball's March Madness. Given the limited window, the agency had to sign deals with college students between games and pitch them for coverage on news outlets within a 24-to 48-hour turnaround time.
This led to several male and female athletes signing deals; one of the most popular at the time was Doug Edert, a guard for the underdog Saint Peter’s team during its run to the Elite 8 of the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
“The difference between a lot of our ideas and [and other advertising ideas] is that they're based in strategy and they're based in the brand truth and what the brand stands for, not just an idea for the sake of a headline,” Robinson said.
The Overtime Deal campaign generated more than 3.2 billion media impressions for Buffalo Wild Wings well as a tripling in social mentions (compared to the previous year's March Madness) with 99.6% positive/neutral sentiment.
Martin last year also launched a customized Fortnite map for Axe called the Mistaverse. The agency also showed off its TV chops with a regional Super Bowl ad for Busch Light that utilized a cameo interview with musician Kenny G and a set of gamer-focused ads for Geico that included a Cuphead-inspired spot. The Geico Gecko also was made into a Funko collectible that could be won by snapping QR codes hidden in Geico ads.
“What stood out to me that was kind of different than a lot of other agencies I worked with before is there's no ego,” said Burrell, who explained that he often has new employees meet with Martin to get a “grounded understanding” of the brand. “Even though this has been a long-standing relationship for almost 30 years … they're just curious and hungry to understand the business, our customers, our competitors and trying to figure out what's the next thing.”
Currently, 60% of Martin's revenue comes from broadcast/online video and 40% comes from digital, social and experiential. The agency continues to expand by growing its Cultural Impact Lab, which focuses on earned attention content, its activation capabilities and the launch of its influencer marketing practice, HypeLine.
Cavallo said the agency has been working, especially over the past three years, to show that Martin isn’t just a TV shop—a perception the company has been fighting since the ’80s, according to Robinson.
“I am not going to shy away from being a great agency that does great television and video,” said Robinson, who said that most clients ask for TV work. “When you're really good at something, it takes people a long time to believe you are good at something else.”
“We've been good at more than TV for longer than the world has noticed,” said Elizabeth Paul, Martin's chief strategy officer. “I think it took a few years to prove and to show up across enough clients in enough different ways that it's not just activations and it's not just TV, but it's also rapid cultural response and influencer in these other spaces.”
Despite being around for more than five decades, Martin also continues to find ways to push its boundaries, such as the recent creation of its chief revenue officer role held by Tasha Dean, which is dedicated to reinventing how the agency gets paid for its intellectual property. It's also added a 50/50 initiative, in which Martin is committed to hiring a minimum of 50% creative talent from underrepresented groups for all its video content production.
Moving forward, as Cavallo splits her time between her two agency roles, she said she is relying on her leadership team more than ever to continue the agency’s momentum.
“The bench strength at Martin allows me to do both things that I want to do,” Cavallo said. “It's the biggest gift that I could ask for.”
