Martin Agency is Ad Age’s 2023 Agency of Year

Richmond ad firm's clients include UPS, Old Navy, Geico

Published March 21, 2023 by Courtney Mabeus-Brown

Richmond advertising firm The Martin Agency has been named Ad Age’s 2023 Agency of the Year, a year after being named as a standout on the trade publication’s A-List.

Ad Age, a global media outlet covering the marketing and advertising industries, cited Martin’s record; the ad agency posted its second-best year of growth in its nearly six-decade history with a 30% revenue increase in 2022. That included 40% organic growth from existing clients and seven new accounts, Ad Age said, adding it lost only one: Coinbase, which the agency declined to re-pitch. That was before a Twitter dustup between Martin CEO Kristen Cavallo and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong after Cavallo corrected the cryptocurrency company executive after he appeared to take credit for the use of a QR code in a Super Bowl advertisement, tweeting that “no ad agency would have done this ad.”

“Except an ad agency did do that ad,” Cavallo responded.

Following the exchange, Cavallo became an “unintentional hero” for an industry that’s been dismissed and undervalued, Ad Age wrote, adding that Martin has become a “beacon” for the industry.

“It was the dissing of the industry that I think is like a cancer and it not only feeds a client’s perspective of the value of advertising, but it feeds the industry’s perspective of its self-worth. That affects the talent that we’re able to attract and the ideas that we come up with,” Cavallo said to Ad Age about the incident.

Cavallo, who started her ad career at Martin in 1994, has been the agency’s CEO since 2017. In November 2022, she was also appointed global CEO of MullenLowe Group, for which she previously served as U.S. president and chief strategy and growth officer. She now leads 20 offices worldwide across 13 companies.

Martin’s other clients include Geico, Old Navy and UPS, for which Martin rolled out two limited-edition fashion lines last year during Fashion Week to promote the shipper’s “Proudly Unstoppable” charity supporting minority-owned small businesses. Martin also oversaw redesigns of UPS’s express boxes with distinctively colorful illustrations to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and women- and Latino-owned businesses.

Ad Age announced Martin’s win on March 13. It also cited the company’s agency of record relationships with a majority of its clients, including a notable win in August 2022 when it was named AOR for Anheuser-Busch Cos. LLC’s Bud Light seltzer brand and Bud Light Next, a zero-calorie beer.

In December 2022, Martin named Tasha Dean its first chief revenue officer, a role in which Dean will focus on intellectual property.

Martin’s win follows other agency highlights. In 2021, it was named Adweek’s U.S. agency of the year for the second consecutive year.

Editor’s note: As earlier version of this story incorrectly stated a timeline for a Twitter exchange and has been updated to reflect that The Martin Agency declined to re-pitch Coinbase before the tweets quoted in the story. 

    Subscribe to Virginia Business.   Get our daily e-newsletter.