Earlier this year, money-minded viewers of Super Bowl LIII hovered near their flat-screen TVs during a commercial break with smartphones in hand, hoping to snap a fleeting image of a paper receipt. Expense management app Expensify was giving users a chance to get reimbursed for half a million dollars’ worth of pricey props in a music video by rapper 2 Chainz—a seafood tower, a diamond-encrusted football and an ice-sculpted Lamborghini.

The campaign was the brainchild of JohnXHannes, the 12-person creative shop based in New York City. “There were so many things that had to be good,” says John McKelvey, co-founder and executive creative director. “Hip-hop by a brand could be so lame if it wasn't done well, so we were very fortunate with all the people we pulled together. I consider it a fantastic outcome, but it definitely, definitely could have been terrible.”

Directed by longtime 2 Chainz collaborator Andreas Nilsson (“Epic Split”), the video turned out to be one of the most popular spots of the Super Bowl and an impressive Big Game debut for the brand, which pulled in as many as 10,000 people per minute to its website in the aftermath. Expensify saw a 1,400 percent jump in new customers after the spot, which was also timed for release close to 2 Chainz' latest album. 

“It felt like we were part of his new album as a single,” says Hannes Ciatti, JohnXHannes’ other co-founder and executive creative director. “It really helped him, and it helped Expensify at the same time, and I think that's what made it really great for both brands.”

Last year, the agency won the Health and Wellness Grand Prix at Cannes for the short film “Corazón,” an organ donation drama it created for Montefiore Hospital that helped add 5,000 new people to the hospital’s donor database. Starring Ana de Armas of “Blade Runner 2049” and Academy Award nominee Demian Bichir, the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Critics praised the film for its message, which highlighted the plight of people in need of organ transplants, as well as the dire situations facing sex workers. The campaign also included an interactive element that used smartphones to detect viewers’ heartbeats and then direct them to a donor registration site.

That a small shop can take on such sprawling projects is due to its flexible structure. “We have the core team, but beyond that we staff up based on the specific project,” says McKelvey. For the largest projects, the team can grow to 50 people. “It's a pretty fortuitous time. It's not the old-school freelance system where people come in and do pitches or take our overflow work. We find the right people, and we have a philosophy that we only take jobs where there’s production attached, so something's going to be made at the end of this.”

JohnXHannes says its model is “built to thrive within today’s realities of project work, in-house agencies and talent outside traditional agencies,” and that’s clearly helping the company’s bottom line. Net revenue for 2019 is projected to be up 50 percent from 2018, jumping from $6 million to $9 million.