If the traditional agency model were applied to lunch, you'd have to go to different delis to get your bread, meat, cheese, veggies, and condiments. That wouldn't be effective, efficient or fun. Neither is having five different agencies working on your social media.
Laundry Service was born in 2011 after founder/CEO Jason Stein identified a flaw in the existing agency model: the handoff between creative and media buying was too slow to keep up with the speed of social. Jason created an agency to service all aspects of content creation and distribution, bringing creative, media buying, production and influencers under one roof for the first time. With this concept at the forefront, Laundry Service has grown over 100% YoY for the last two years – working with top brands including Nike, Jordan Brand, Beats by Dr. Dre, Amazon, and LG – and now has more than 80 employees in its New York, Los Angeles and Portland offices.
We were very fortunate in 2014. Over the course of the year, we more than doubled our revenue and headcount through new relationships with over a dozen major brands, including Nike, Jordan Brand, Beats By Dr. Dre, LG, Starwood, Amazon, Michael Kors, DKNY, Oprah Winfrey Network, (RED), and more.
But we didn't just win awesome business and execute on great work. We transformed our agency and the landscape at large by creating an in-house talent management group dedicated to representing and leveraging the most sought-after social content creators and influencers in the world. Known as Cycle, the division is led by Executive Director Liz Eswein, known to her 1.2 million followers on Instagram as @newyorkcity. In fact, Digiday recently called Liz "the most influential person on Instagram." In just ten months, Cycle has executed content and influencer projects at scale for over 50 of the world's biggest brands and marketing agencies, and generated press in industry trades and national publications including Advertising Age, the New York Times, Forbes, and MediaPost.
One of our biggest successes last year came when Jordan asked us to help them pay homage to one of their key athletes, Derek Jeter. Following the release of an iconic commercial featuring players, fans, and celebrities tipping their hats to Jeter, Laundry Service launched a multi-platform campaign involving content creation, paid media and influencer partnerships to amplify the video and create mass awareness around the #RE2PECT Hat Tip campaign. By testing and learning in real-time, we generated a huge amount of views within 24 hours of the video launch. It quickly became the most shared content in the history of the brand as well as the most shared video in the history of Facebook's native video player. Overall, the campaign was incredibly successful, and several months later we're still seeing loyal fans tipping their hats to the Captain.
As Jordan's global social AOR, we also launched a multi-channel campaign to create and sustain buzz around the summer release of their new performance sneaker, the XX9. The campaign included live reporting and real-time drone footage of major national basketball events, as well as authentic, premium photography and video telling the story of high school basketball players' summer journeys. We helped make the XX9 launch one of the most successful in the brand's storied history, driving more social engagements than any prior product launch. As sports marketing expert Nate Jones (@JonesOnTheNBA) tweeted: "No sneaker brand hit the pulse of what it means to be a young high school hooper better than @Jumpman23 this summer."
Throughout 2014, our work was recognized across the industry. We were named "Media Company of Tomorrow" by Forbes, a top social media agency by R3WW, and we were just added to Advertising Age's 2015 A-List as an Agency to Watch. Our expertise has been peppered throughout top-tier publications including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNBC, Forbes, Advertising Age, Adweek, and Digiday.
As amazing as last year was, we're even more excited for 2015. With organic growth and some key recent wins, we've already locked in a 100% increase in revenue for the year so far. Hashtag #blessed.
Four years ago, we were a small, hungry agency with a converged approach to owned, earned and paid media. Now we're working with the best brands in the world, developing and distributing outstanding content 24/7, and driving business results from awareness through conversion.
