Company: Maloney & Fox, New York, NY
Company Description: Maloney & Fox, a Waggener Edstrom company, develops campaigns that go beyond PR, using a mix of marketing techniques to help clients build their brands. The agency is obsessed with client satisfaction; believes that a fun, dynamic workplace leads to superior creative thinking and results.
Nomination Category: Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Creative Organization

Nomination Title: Maloney & Fox: The Un-Agency

1. Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Maloney & Fox: The Un-Agency

Maloney & Fox never liked the term “creative boutique,” but as a small agency,
it was hard to escape. Now, nearly ten years old with 25 employees, Maloney &
Fox (M&F) has officially outgrown the moniker. But at an age when some agencies
start to lose their touch, M&F’s brand of creative informs projects big and
small – from straight media relations efforts to large-scale experiential
events.

CHIPS, CHATS AND CLICHES

One of the tenets of M&F is that great ideas can come from anyone – from the
fresh-faced intern to the grizzled veteran. To ferret out these ideas, the
entire agency gathers for weekly “Speakeasys,” an hour of chips, guacamole,
beer and straight talk – about everything from the state of the business to
client initiatives to the merits of various Family Guy episodes. These meetings
give everyone an opportunity to get away from the day-to-day grind and throw
out ideas. (However, M&F doesn’t buy into the cliché that there are no bad
ideas – the real stinkers get “gonged,” with the originator forced to do a
dance of shame).

But even the fun is about more than just fun. M&F knows a fun environment leads
to more creativity and better results for clients.

THE HIGHLIGHT REEL

This year, the agency’s creativity helped it maintain a cadre of smart, loyal
clients including Microsoft, RCA, Network Solutions, the American Physical
Therapy Association (APTA), Robert Rothschild Farm, Bosca, The Thomas Riley
Artisans’ Guild and Drambuie. The agency launched several campaigns that over-
delivered for clients, helping them generate media attention, build buzz and,
most importantly, drive sales. 

Highlights included:

• Coining the term “BlackBerry Thumb” for the APTA, then launching a
media campaign that garnered more than a quarter-billion impressions and
effectively positioned physical therapy as the solution to this problem.

• Hosting “Drambuie Dens” in New York, Chicago and Toronto, extending an
experiential marketing campaign M&F began in 2005 that put Drambuie in the
hands of thousands of influencers and turned around decades of declining sales.

• Launching the RCA Small Wonder digital camcorder with low-cost PR
programs to attract retail partners and drive females 26-44 to purchase the
Small Wonder on the M&F-designed MySmallWonder.com. With more than 10,000
visitors in the first weeks of launch, 1,200 Small Wonders were sold on the
site. 

• Creating a sampling program for gourmet food brand Robert Rothschild
Farm that doubled Web traffic during the critical holiday shopping season.

• Developing and producing a tongue-in-cheek viral campaign for
Microsoft’s MSN Search that was recognized as a driver of a new trend toward
spoof-driven marketing in the New York Times’ Advertising column.

Thanks to creative campaigns like these, M&F received 10 awards (bringing the
total in its trophy case to 50 pieces of bling), signed seven new clients and
watched revenue grow 26% with record profitability, putting the word “boutique”
to rest once and for all. Creativity for its own sake is swell, but creativity
in the service of advancing business goals is sweller.

2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.maloneyfox.com/stevies/BestCreativeOrganization.htm

3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated organization/department:

In 1997, Brian Maloney and Margie Fox had an idea: take the best practices from
other PR and marketing agencies and combine them into something new – a place that valued everyone’s input; a place where people took chances; and a place that embraced motivated, well-rounded employees with lives outside the office. Since forming Maloney & Fox, Brian and Margie have developed outrageous creative programs built on strong strategic foundations that led to major marketing and PR successes for some of the world’s biggest companies, including Microsoft, Amazon.com and AutoNation and have been recognized with nearly 50 PR and marketing awards.