Lightning Orchard was only a year old when the pandemic hit, yet the agency grew revenue 132% during 2020 through a commitment to innovation for every client despite the circumstances. 

See all of Ad Age's 2021 Small Agency Award winners here.

When the shop was founded in 2019, Lightning Orchard established strict tenets of diversity and equality within its community and through outreach. The agency states that its majority equity shareholder and highest-paid employee will always be female and that female employees will always be paid equal to their male peers. The shop says it's tired of hearing excuses for the lack of diversity in the advertising industry.

In partnership with local New York nonprofits and education experts, Lightning Orchard heads a proprietary program for at-risk BIPOC youth to get hands-on experience and training in communication arts. Through this program, the agency hopes to eliminate racial disparity and grow the pool of BIPOC talent in marketing for future generations.

In addition to its many initiatives to foster inclusion, Lightning Orchard has produced exceptional work throughout the past year. The agency’s custom client innovations included shipping cameras to former U.S. Olympians Michael Phelps and Aly Raisman for Silk Soy, commissioning a work-from-home stop-motion artist for Oat Yeah and remotely overseeing 3D animation for So Delicious.

Lightning Orchard headed two Super Bowl spots in 2020. “YoGlutes,” a celebration of male athletes’ butts, for Oikos Triple Zero yogurt, drove a seven-point sales lift for the yogurt's parent company Danone, topped best-of lists and won the agency additional work for Oikos.

For password management software Dashlane, Lightning Orchard brought the Super Bowl to the River Styx in “Password Paradise,” a harrowing (and relatable) tale of a man who can’t get to heaven because he can’t recall his password. After the ad, which Ace Metrix placed in the top 3% of all spots since 2014 for memorability, purchase intent for Dashlane increased 46% and Harvard Business Review called it “one of the most successful ads of 2020.”

See all of Ad Age's 2021 Small Agency Award winners here.