SMALLAGENCY AWARDS
AGENCY OF THE YEAR
1-10 EMPLOYEES
GOLD
Mistress
With a willingness to ‘sit with anybody’ and not get tied
down to particular medium,Venice hotshop raked in
$1.8 million in business in its very first year
■ MAUREEN MORRISON
mcmorrison@adage.com
IN AN AGENCY environment with
increasingly bizarre agency names,
Mistress still stands out. But Christian
Jacobsen, one of five founding partners,
said that it’s more than just a name
that grabs people’s attention. “[It’s]
also our position in the agency world
and what we represent.”
So how exactly does an agency
behave as a mistress? The agency’s
founding partners all built experience
working at agencies that typically
pitched and held out for agency-of-
record business, Mr. Jacobsen said. But
Mistress doesn’t just aim for AOR sta-
tus; rather, the agency is open and will-
ing to “sit with anybody.”
“We noticed the business has
changed, and thought it was a great
time to build an agency for how the
agency world works now. We thought,
‘Let’s just create an agency that follows
the state of the business.’”
Mistress was founded in February
2010 with five partners: Mr. Jacobsen,
Damien Eley, Scott Harris, Blake
Marquis and Jens Stoelken, a group that
collectively logged time at Ogilvy &
Mather, Kastner & Partners, Mother
and BBDO.
MISTRESS MONSIEURS: (Froml.):Christian Jacobsen,DamienEley, JensStoelken,ScottHarris andBlakeE.Marquis
from Mistress.
For ESPN, one of Mistress’s first
projects was a global TV campaign for
ESPN’s ScoreCenter app, which allows
sports fans to customize the app to follow their favorite teams.
For Hot Wheels, Mistress helped the
brand reach a new demographic: grown
men who rediscover toys after they
have children. As part of a “Hot Wheels
For Real” campaign, Mistress developed
TV ads and digital and long-form con-
tent surrounding a life-size Hot Wheels
jump and world-record attempt at the
100th anniversary celebration of the
Indianapolis 500. Following the event,
Hot Wheels presented a 30-minute TV
special on ABC (and ESPN globally)
showcasing the world-record attempt.
THE WORK:
Hot Wheels for
Real (top) and Red
Bull.
SILVER
Tattoo Projects
Agency makes its mark by pushing clients to
take risks and staying commitment-free
DRIVING INNOVATION: Tattoogo-kartracingcrew
■ BY E.J. SCHULTZ eschultz@adage.com
TATTOO PROJECTS IS NOT into com-
mitment, preferring projects for a flat
fee vs. a long-term relationship on con-
tract. Or as the 10-person Charlotte-
based creative agency says, it wants to
date, not get married. “We like our
clients to always want to come back
after us,” said co-owner Buffy McCoy
Kelly. “We love just a good one-night
stand with our clients. We come in and
we show them a really, really good
time.”
It may sound like little more than
the spin of a feisty, young and hungry
agency, but Ms. McCoy Kelly and co-
owner Rudolph Banny swear they
mean it. Indeed, they cringed when
one client, Hoover, sent out a press
release announcing Tattoo as its
agency of record. “We never signed a
contract. We just said we’ll just keep it
going on a project basis,” Mr. Banny
said. And the vacuum maker is appar-
ently pleased, sticking with the agency
for nearly two years now.
THE WORK:
Hoover, Dale
Earnhardt Jr.
Foundation,
Sheetz.
