From our beginning a decade ago as youth-marketing agency Mr Youth, to the rebrand as social media specialist MRY in 2011, our agency has always enjoyed rapid growth, outpaced only by the market that has been our pursuit. However, in 2012, we found ourselves at a crossroads and were faced with a challenge: merging LBi US with MRY. We decided to do so with the goal of becoming the Digital Agency of Record for the world’s best brands while never forgetting our deep expertise and love for the world of social media. In 2013, we became the new MRY, combining the best of LBi -- a deep heritage in blending strategy, creativity, media and technology -- with the best of MRY -- over ten years as a best-in-class social media and experiential agency -- to establish something truly unique, a creative and technology agency that makes brands remarkable. With an enhanced headcount and service offering, MRY harnesses creative technology, data-driven insights and analytics to create communications that foster and build relationships on behalf of some of the world's biggest brands including Coca-Cola, Visa, Adobe, and Neutrogena. We leverage media and technology as it exists today – a constantly shifting mix of paid, owned and earned channels, all working in tandem to their maximum effect through the perfect mix of art and science that characterizes our campaigns. We knew there would be risks. We had to accept that a lot of mergers don’t work. But in joining together as MRY, this combined entity is producing its best work yet with even better days ahead, as a number of digital agency of records wins in 2013 has proven. Clearly, 2013 was not a simple year for us. In fact, it would have been quite easy for our team to get bogged down in merger mechanics. However, luckily for us, we are an agency that is born-and-bred in a world of new media, and there’s no place for slow-moving players in that space. We believe that the right mix of art, science and talent is the key to remarkable work. And while social is not the only work we do, we believe that it is essential to have it at the core of everything that we make. By expanding our in-house capabilities in the merger of LBi US and MRY, we enhanced our ability to create the kind of forward-looking, data-driven, and socially-infused work that we want to be known for. Our latest work for Visa, #GoInSix, exemplifies the way we think about social at MRY. The challenge was to get people to care and share about Visa in an online environment where they had only become accustomed to seeing deals, discounts, and financial information from the brand. We saw the opportunity to put Visa in the center of conversation by turning to where consumers naturally express themselves with what they are passionate about –- social media. And more specifically, we tapped into how they talked about those things. We changed the way we marketed – shifting from products to passions, deals to inspiration, and tools for living to life worth living. With industry research telling us that we only had 6.5 seconds to make a point before being tuned out by the consumer, we knew that highly visual, short, snackable content was the name of the game. So we designed for the mobile flick and got right to the point: 6-word stories, 6-picture vignettes, 6-second films -- a complete storytelling construct told through the lens of six, identified with the moniker #GoInSix. We inspired people to go on Facebook with visually arresting, must-be-there experiences. We showed people how to “Go" by provoking curiosity on Twitter with of-the-moment conversation starters and wonder-inducing 6-second films on Vine. We invited consumers to share how they Go with a UGC promotion on Instagram. Throughout our content, we lowered the barriers to Go by placing links to third party sites providing the means to actually have that experience. And the results? We were #1. Prior to #GoInSix, the Visa Facebook Unmetric score was 56, ranked 7th in the financial services category. Over the course of the campaign, we averaged 75, 1st in financial services, but more impressively, 2nd when compared to all top ranked lifestyle competitors in each relevant spend category (restaurants, food/beverages, travel & tourism, retail, entertainment, luxury, and sports)…outdone by only the magic of Walt Disney World. #GoInSix delivered 330MM earned impressions and 37,046 storied engagements per post. #GoInSix delivered 6x the earned impressions and more than 10x the storied engagements per post than industry standards. Every “let’s go" came from consumers, not from the brand, where 91% of those engagements came from outside our owned Visa communities, signifying we persuaded the broader public and not just an echo chamber of deal-hunting financial services enthusiasts. Visa achieved the most efficient Facebook CPEI (cost per earned impression) and CPSE (cost per storied engagement – likes/comments/shares per community size) in the financial services category, and across relevant lifestyle industries (shopping, entertainment, and travel). We’re applying this same mix of art and science to the work we are doing for Adobe. Borrowed, paid for, or pirated, Adobe software is the tool of choice for creative students. But for students to buy into the new Adobe Creative Cloud subscription model they had to see value beyond the software. So we designed a platform that mirrored the ambition students had for themselves. Whether it was the next masterpiece or the next career path, Adobe would help you make it. Make it with Creative Cloud. We turned students into stars and their work into our advertising. Their stories of creation became our content. Their successes became our successes. And each student project became and Adobe product story. Global partnerships put student work in front of industry leaders and put students on stage with creative legends, culminating in content for hundreds of on-campus workshops and across every part of the web. Considering the target audience—college students—social played a particularly prominent role in the campaign. By keeping the authentic storytelling tone of students’ success stories front and center we generated more than six million earned impressions in the first six weeks alone, in addition to over four million impressions from media partners. The #AdobeOfficeHour series drove over 200K earned impressions around the world with an additional 200K earned impressions from student reps. The largest growing channel, Instagram, had a 115% fan growth as students from around the world engaged with #AdobeOfficeHours mentors’ visuals. In addition to our work for Adobe and Visa, we’ve been thrilled by a slew of new business wins this year – including Global Social AOR for National Grid, Digital AOR for Jagermeister, Global Digital AOR for Newell Rubbermaid, and Social AOR for StubHub – and award wins like The Mashies’ Digital Marketing Innovator of the Year for our work for Coca-Cola. Summer 2013 saw us fill out our management team by attracting top talent from esteemed organizations such as AKQA, Dare and 360i, all while maintaining the sense of entrepreneurialism at scale that has been an MRY staple since the birth of our agency, encouraging employees to pursue their own personal passions both in and outside of the office. With results like the world’s first Vine-A-Thon and the MRY Coffee App, which allows employees to order our in-house barista’s incredible caffeinated concoctions with the click of a button, we’d say that we’re poised to take on 2014 with an agency that is stronger than ever.
Visa #GoInSix Case Study: http://creativeawardshowcase.com/go-in-six/ Adobe "Make It With Creative Cloud" Case Study: http://creativeawardshowcase.com/adobe-creative-cloud/ Coca-Cola "Move to the Beat of London 2012" Case Study: http://www.creativeawardshowcase.com/Coca-Cola/London2012/ MRY Coffee App Case Study: http://creativeawardshowcase.com/mry-coffee/
