Ammo Marketing isn’t a new agency — it has been around since 1999.
But it cracked the Promo 100 for the first time this year, debuting at No. 74.
What took it so long to even enter the competition?
“Until a year ago we were only five people,” says Andrew Strickman, Ammo’s managing director and vice president of creative. “We had more than enough on our plate.”
Equally distracting were two changes in ownership. Ammo’s principals led a management buyout in 2004. Then they sold the agency to U.K.-based Isobar Communications last year.
“We had no intention of selling,” says Ammo’s president Julian Aldridge, a transplanted Brit who has lived in the U.S. for 11 years.
What made him change his mind? “I can’t tell you the real story,” Aldridge quips. “That involved lots of Jack Daniels.”
What is clear is that Isobar, made up of several agencies in 83 offices worldwide, wanted to bolster its word-of-mouth capability.
Being a subsidiary of the much larger organization has its advantages, Aldridge admits. For one thing, sister agencies now want to know how they can utilize Ammo’s expertise.
But don’t look for Ammo to do things the traditional way. For one thing, “We don’t do any spec work,” Aldridge says.
Ammo believes that its ideas are so valuable that marketers should pay for every one of them.
Aldridge estimates that 70% of 2006 revenue is new-client business.
Another thing that makes Ammo unique is its willingness to take on taboo products, like KY jelly. The marketing of KY is “considerably unsexy,” Aldridge says. But the agency worked on the launch of KY’s new premium Intrigue brand this year, using social networking to draw testimonials from appreciative men and women.
TOP EXECUTIVES: Julian Aldridge, president; Andrew Strickman. managing director and vice president of creative; Kerry Lange, vice president of operations and managing director
2006 U.S. NET REVENUE: $1 million (estimated)
KEY CLIENTS: Cadbury-Schweppes, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, HP, Electronic Arts
HEADQUARTERS: San Francisco
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