President's Award: Mcgarrybowen
By Andrew McMains
Monday, January 10 2005
Monday, January 10 2005
Published on AllBusiness.com
For months, Bruce Gordon had been considering creating a heartfelt ad message to mark the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11. Verizon had been instrumental in getting New York City and the New York Stock Exchange back on line, so Gordon, president of Verizon's retail markets' group, felt uniquely positioned to "send a card to the nation expressing our feelings around 9/11."
His roster shops—including Interpublic Group's Lowe and Draft—advised against rolling out any ad, fearing that it would be seen as exploitative, Gordon says. But mcgarrybowen, a non-roster startup led by former top executives of Young & Rubicam, said it could be done, provided the "card" didn't look or feel like a commercial.
It was August 2002, and the New York agency, which had been open for only a few weeks, didn't have a single client. But CEO John McGarry, a politely persistent account man who had been in the business 33 years (four and a half of them as president of Y&R Inc.), and chief creative officer Gordon Bowen, a former executive creative director at Y&R and Ogilvy & Mather who was famous for emotive work on AT&T and American Express, had plenty of friends.
One of them was Gordon, a former Bell Atlantic marketing exec whom McGarry had known since 1996. (Bell Atlantic, then a client of Y&R's The Lord Group, was among 41 "key corporate accounts" McGarry oversaw.) McGarry had called Gordon in June to ask him what he thought about his starting an agency. That led to a meeting, at which Gordon posed the 9/11 tribute question.
Mcgarrybowen's resulting spot, "Lady Liberty," a black-and-white paean to freedom, featuring children circling the Statue of Liberty, a ballad sung by Josh Groban and the tiniest of Verizon logos at the end, was produced in just four weeks. A month later, in October, Verizon made mcgarrybowen its lead creative agency, and the following February, the New York client shifted the rest of its business from Lowe.
Since the Verizon win, McGarry and Bowen have continued to dial more friends in the business, adding Marriott International and an Interbrew/AmBev project in 2003 and four new clients last year: Chase, Crayola, Indiplon and Reebok. It has boosted revenue more than sevenfold in that time—and 64 percent in 2004—to an estimated $18 million. It now handles creative duties on brands that spent an estimated $500 million in measured media last year.
In a mere two and a half years, the little independent has not only amassed an impressive list of blue-chip clients but also proven time and again that advertising is a business of relationships. In an industry enthralled by newfangled bells and whistles, mcgarrybowen does it the old-fashioned way, selling clients on a mixture of hands-on leadership and narrative-driven work
His roster shops—including Interpublic Group's Lowe and Draft—advised against rolling out any ad, fearing that it would be seen as exploitative, Gordon says. But mcgarrybowen, a non-roster startup led by former top executives of Young & Rubicam, said it could be done, provided the "card" didn't look or feel like a commercial.
It was August 2002, and the New York agency, which had been open for only a few weeks, didn't have a single client. But CEO John McGarry, a politely persistent account man who had been in the business 33 years (four and a half of them as president of Y&R Inc.), and chief creative officer Gordon Bowen, a former executive creative director at Y&R and Ogilvy & Mather who was famous for emotive work on AT&T and American Express, had plenty of friends.
One of them was Gordon, a former Bell Atlantic marketing exec whom McGarry had known since 1996. (Bell Atlantic, then a client of Y&R's The Lord Group, was among 41 "key corporate accounts" McGarry oversaw.) McGarry had called Gordon in June to ask him what he thought about his starting an agency. That led to a meeting, at which Gordon posed the 9/11 tribute question.
Mcgarrybowen's resulting spot, "Lady Liberty," a black-and-white paean to freedom, featuring children circling the Statue of Liberty, a ballad sung by Josh Groban and the tiniest of Verizon logos at the end, was produced in just four weeks. A month later, in October, Verizon made mcgarrybowen its lead creative agency, and the following February, the New York client shifted the rest of its business from Lowe.
Since the Verizon win, McGarry and Bowen have continued to dial more friends in the business, adding Marriott International and an Interbrew/AmBev project in 2003 and four new clients last year: Chase, Crayola, Indiplon and Reebok. It has boosted revenue more than sevenfold in that time—and 64 percent in 2004—to an estimated $18 million. It now handles creative duties on brands that spent an estimated $500 million in measured media last year.
In a mere two and a half years, the little independent has not only amassed an impressive list of blue-chip clients but also proven time and again that advertising is a business of relationships. In an industry enthralled by newfangled bells and whistles, mcgarrybowen does it the old-fashioned way, selling clients on a mixture of hands-on leadership and narrative-driven work