This article is brought to you in association with Macroart

Agency Spotlight, the latest addition to the Event Industry News site, profiles the top of the pyramid, the design and creativity behind brand activations, experiences, exhibition USPs and the greater live event model.

Sponsored by print specialist Macroart, these pages will profile agencies of all sizes, looking at how and why they started, with what ambition, key projects, relationships with the supply chain and a whole lot more besides.

If your agency has a fitting story to tell, get in touch: Kizzy@eventindustrynews.com 


Agency: Jack Morton
Formed: 1939
Annual Events: 100+
Staff: 51-100 employees
Offices: 17
jackmorton.com

Mantra: Do something extraordinary

Formation:

Jack Morton founded our agency in 1939, so this year we’re celebrating 80 years in the industry. Jack knew the power of brand experience back then and we’re proud to continue to build on his legacy today, working with many of the world’s most successful brands to deliver the proof on their brand promise through extraordinary experiences.

We’ve grown into a truly global agency, averaging 10,000 event activation days per year across the globe and winning 247 creative awards in 2018, including the Grand Prix and Game Changer at the Campaign Event Awards. To achieve this, we work hard to develop a deep understanding through our partnerships with brands – the average tenure of a client working with Jack is eight years, seventy percent of our clients are repeat customers and our Net Promoter score is 2.3 times the industry average.

Leadership: Josh McCall, Julian Pullan & Mike Kunheim

Our senior leadership at Jack Morton reflects our commitment to developing talent through the agency. Our current CEO Josh McCall, who is only our third to hold the role in 80 years, joined in 1984 and has served in various capacities of increasing responsibility from an Account Executive to Chief Operating Officer, before becoming CEO in 2003 and Chairman in 2007. Under his leadership, the agency has expanded its reach across the US, Europe, Australia, Asia and South America and has been recognized for its creativity, winning dozens of awards including Cannes Lions, Stevies, Ex Awards, PRO Awards, and Webby Awards

Julian Pullan is our vice chairman and president, international for the agency. Julian joined Jack Morton in 2002 as director of operations in London and became managing director in 2005. He joined the global executive team in 2009, became president, EMEA in 2011 and was appointed president, international and Vice Chairmanin 2015. Under his leadership, the international operation has grown significantly in size and reputation, including the foundation of Jack offices in Dubai and Germany. Julian stewards the creative quality and output of the agency in addition to his continued leadership of the agency outside of the US.

Mike Kunheim is our EVP, managing director in London and has been at Jack for the last 21 years. His passion for communications strategy, brave ideas and brand experience has seen him play a key leadership, strategic and client partner role across multiple high-profile global projects, brand campaigns and product launches.

As managing director at Jack Morton London since October 2015, Mike leads the growth of the agency with a core focus on building deeper client relationships, attracting and retaining awesome talent and creating a culture that fuels our ‘do something extraordinary’ purpose.

Key services and sectors served:

We’re a global brand experience agency. We’re best known for event & experiential marketing, integrated campaigns, digital & content marketing, sponsorship marketing and employee engagement. We also have special expertise with experiential technology, public events, exhibits, broadcast design and moving image. Yep, we’re multi-channel, multi-discipline and just plain multi-talented.

Case Study: Desperados – Deep House

Desperados, HEINEKEN’S tequila flavoured beer brand, once again pushed the boundaries of wild experimentation in parties by turning the world’s deepest pool into a dance floor – for the first time ever! The brand worked with Jack Morton and WE ARE Pi to create the experience.

Teaming up with world-renowned DJs Peggy Gou and Artwork, alongside iconic party producer Elrow, Desperados created ‘Deep House’ – an epic party in the Y-40 Deep Joy pool in Venice, the deepest pool in the world. Deep House saw over 400 fans attend the multi-sensory experience. Partygoers wore cutting-edge SeaTREK diving technology to hear the music in high definition and took the party underwater to find their own dance floor. Performing live from an underwater viewing tunnel, award-winning Berlin-based artist Peggy Gou, and London producer and DJ, Artwork, brought their world-class beats to submerged partiers, through a sub aqua sound system.

The experience reached 1.2bn through earned media and a 981% uplift in brand engagement across Desperado’s owned channels throughout the campaign period, helping Desperados grow by 13% in a category which shrank by 0.2% globally.

Case Study: Jameson Three Things – Global Experiential Platform

Three Things is Jameson’s new global experiential platform, created by Jack Morton. Inspired by their signature triple distillation process, it’s designed to engage Jameson fans through their passion points and the people they admire.

To kick things off, we sent Irish Radio DJ (and Three Things host) Keith Walsh to the Jameson Distillery in Midleton, County Cork. His mission: find out what makes Jameson…Jameson. As he follows the journey of the whiskey itself – from the stills, to the casks, to the huge maturation warehouses that are home to 1.5 million barrels – he meets three of the faces of the distillery and asks them for the one thing they think makes Jameson unique.

There are a few laughs, a couple of drinks and Keith’s realisation that good things really do come in threes…

What the future holds:

We may have a long history at Jack, but we are very much focused on being an agency for now and of the future. To this end, we recently launched Genuine X, our innovation and technology practice, designed to help build the brand experiences of the future. Based out of London, we appointed a global head of the innovation practice, recruited diverse talent and have brought together a series of R&D partners to collaborate and develop alongside. 

This ethos of a more agile, collaborative way of working also extends to our relationships with educational institutions, where we are forging more innovative partnerships. This is important not just from an R&D perspective, but from one of talent retention and attraction.  The battle for agency success is always won through talent, so forging these innovative partnerships and creating a future-ready working environment in which people want to engage and collaborate are the keys to our success.  

This Agency Spotlight is sponsored by Macroart

Macroart challenges the assumptions about a ‘typical print company’. With a fair bit of cool kit to turn clients’ visions into reality, Macroart’s enthusiastic, committed and talented team delivers some of the most complex print projects in live events, retail and interiors.

Kizzy Allott
Author: Kizzy Allott