On the eve of its 100th anniversary, McKinsey faced a rare challenge: not to reinvent itself, but to reintroduce itself. Long synonymous with strategic excellence, the firm had already evolved into a partner that connects strategy, technology, and execution — yet this breadth was not fully understood beyond its core clients.
The challenge was especially acute given the audience McKinsey needed to reach. Senior business leaders are navigating extraordinary complexity. Tasked with driving growth and transformation amid constant technological and industry disruption, they are pragmatic, outcomes-focused, and under intense time pressure. They value tangible results over rhetoric and seek trusted partners who can translate ideas into action and deliver impact. Historically, they engaged deeply with McKinsey’s insights and research, and their perceptions were ‘frozen in amber’.
A global executive perception study confirmed this starting point: while McKinsey’s strategic credibility remained strong, the perception of its ability to drive end-to-end impact—particularly through implementation and technology—significantly lagged competitors. The research also reinforced that being seen as creating positive societal impact was increasingly important as a driver of preference in the consulting industry.
The objective was to reposition McKinsey as the partner for transformative change — one that helps leaders define bold strategies and turn them into measurable, real-world outcomes. This ambition was unified under a single provocation — “What’s Your Next Brilliant Move?” — designed to elevate leaders’ thinking and position McKinsey as the partner that helps turn strategy into action.
Three audience truths shaped the strategic campaign approach:
Truth 1: Leaders value McKinsey’s insights but don’t see it as an end-to-end partner for making bold moves.
Action: Lead with a provocation that raises executives’ ambitions and implies McKinsey will help them realize them. “What’s Your Next Brilliant Move?” anchored the campaign around what executives want to achieve and provided a unifying frame across touchpoints.
Truth 2: Leaders can be skeptical of overly brand-led marketing.
Action: Design the campaign to focus on clients as champions and move quickly from inspiration to evidence—with impact stories to show how McKinsey has helped peer executives deliver measurable results, while reinforcing the positive impact for society.
Truth 3: Technology is a core perception gap we need to close, but we can’t walk away from our strategy heritage.
Action: Use case studies and insights to show that McKinsey’s unique ability to create value through tech comes because it is directly connected to business strategy and value.
These truths informed a phased rollout across owned, earned, paid, and live channels.
Phase 1–Platform Teaser (June):
“What’s Your Next Brilliant Move?” launched at Cannes Lions, unifying research releases, leadership stages, and executive convenings under one cohesive platform. Every flagship interaction opened with the same provocation, creating consistency and momentum, which was amplified across digital channels.
Phase 2–Anthem Film + Flagship Storytelling (Summer):
An anthem film blended archival and newly filmed footage, using real examples from McKinsey’s history of helping leaders make brilliant moves—from NASA, to the Universal Product Code, to AI-enabled performance with Emirates Team New Zealand. The film served as the emotional door-opener for paid media, premium publisher placements, and owned channels, driving audiences to McKinsey.com/move.
Phase 3–Proof Through Client Stories (Fall):
After an inspiring start, storytelling shifted toward proof. Tech-forward stories demonstrated impact, including work with Apple, Deutsche Telekom, Allianz, and Toshiba Tec with NVIDIA. In parallel, positive impact-focused stories reinforced McKinsey’s societal contribution through work like McKinsey.org.
Phase 4–Tech as the Hero (Late Q4):
The campaign deepened through a sub-platform “Tech That Moves Everything”, featuring a tech-centric anthem film and campaign landing page (McKinsey.com/TechMoves), articulating McKinsey’s ability to create value through tech, at a moment when leaders were questioning tech ROI.
Throughout, paid media was deployed with precision, not volume. Historically, McKinsey’s paid media was limited and fragmented. This campaign marked a coordinated shift toward integrated, high-quality engagement across many channels. On Trade Desk, we used Bombora intent data to identify senior decision-makers actively researching transformation, technology, and leadership topics and reach them across media sites. We reinforced messages through paid social and built credibility through premium publisher partnerships with The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and WIRED, testing high-impact formats such as custom video and interactive placements to inform future optimizations.
As McKinsey’s first global brand campaign, the effort was designed to continuously learn what works best. A leader might first encounter the message via a publisher story, then engage on LinkedIn, and ultimately explore case studies on McKinsey.com/move.
The platform delivered outsized engagement and preference among one of the hardest audiences to reach: time-starved senior leaders. Within the first three months of the campaign, it reached well beyond existing audiences, achieving 92% incremental reach and a 40% increase in organic followership, while delivering measurable business impact: event activations lifted proposals by 40%, with one event generating 500 client interactions and five new engagements within six weeks.
To date, the cohesive brand platform has supported 18 major events in person and reached 2M senior executives globally via paid media.
Early results from an ongoing Nielsen Brand lift study of paid media efforts showed statistically significant lifts across all KPIs, including familiarity, favorability, consideration, recommendation, and message association with “What’s Your Next Brilliant Move?” Campaign exposure also drove double-digit percentage-point lifts on critical brand attributes, including having a positive impact on society, being a company I trust, and being the consulting firm leaders want to work with.
Premium publisher partnerships drove strong engagement with lower-funnel impact. The Wall Street Journal’s brand-lift study showed Preference increasing by +2.4pp and Action Intent by +3.4pp, both well above category norms.
Engagement with proof was sustained. Case-study-related terms—such as “McKinsey case study”—were among the strongest-performing branded keywords in paid search, generating high click-through rates.
A repeat wave of Global Client Perception Research confirmed the shift, with McKinsey ranking #1 across the majority of client-relevant attributes, while awareness and consideration for its technology and AI capabilities strengthened year-over-year.
