Best Agencies 2024: Lerma/

“We weren’t supposed to be here. We weren’t supposed to grow beyond being a Hispanic marketing agency,” wrote Lerma/ in its A-List entry. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here Yet Lerma/, which originally began as the multicultural arm of The Richards Group (now TRG), has broken into the mainstream since breaking away from the Dallas agency in 2021. It was not an easy transition—TRG filed a since-settled suit to stop its opening, according to Lerma/. But since then, the agency has been unstoppable. The cross-cultural shop has seen significant growth in the last two years; in 2023 Lerma/ projected $330 million in combined fees and billings, up from $202 million the prior year. The agency, which is 42% diverse, picked up six new accounts in Avocados From Mexico, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation, the TV series “The Chosen” and Instacart. Ad Age A-List and Creativity Gala Buy your ticket to the in-person event Click here It also created a Super Bowl spot for Avocados From Mexico and two for “He Gets Us,” the ad campaign centered around rebranding Jesus for the contemporary world. “He Gets Us” has become one of the more controversial and attention-grabbing campaigns over the past few years. The controversy stems from the campaign’s donors, yet the ads seem to be effective for the client. The “He Gets Us” national campaign last year, which included Super Bowl spots and a digital ad created by AI, led to 70% national awareness among the client’s target audience, 10 billion total impressions, 7 billion video views, over 700 million digital engagements and 16 million unique website visitors. For Home Depot, Lerma/ launched a “Latina Doers” campaign meant to make Latinas feel welcome in home improvement stores. Following the campaign, 67% of Latinas surveyed said they would visit Home Depot. Lerma/ was also tapped to lead Home Depot’s largest product launch of the year. Ecolab, which historically offered commercial cleaning products for businesses, decided to launch consumer-focused products exclusively with Home Depot and enlisted Lerma/. Its campaign surpassed benchmarks on return on ad spend and the digital videos the agency created reached a 92% completion rate. Interstate Batteries tasked Lerma/ with increasing awareness among women and 18- to 34-year-olds. The campaign, which focused on undependable drivers, showed scenarios of people such as “Colin,” who drives away from the gas pump with the nozzle still in his tank. That led to user-generated content that the agency said became even more popular than the original ads. The UGC-style phase of the campaign led to a 16% increase in ad recall and a 19% increase in prospects; paid media efforts increased gross profit return on investment to 35% since the launch of the new campaign. All of which proves that Lerma/ is supposed to be here. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here

Lerma/ proves its ‘cross-cultural’ philosophy

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