User:Ashtumlin/McKinney

McKinney is an independent advertising agency based in Durham, North Carolina.

The agency’s clients include Coldwell Banker, Abbott Nutrition's EAS, Newell Rubbermaid’s Aprica, Gold’s Gym, Major League Gaming, Nationwide Insurance, Nike, The NASDAQ Stock Market, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, ProShares, Qwest Communications, Sherwin-Williams, Travelocity, and Brown-Forman Corporation brands Bonterra, Chambord, Sonoma-Cutrer, Southern Comfort and Tuaca.

History
In 1969, native North Carolinian Charles "Chick" McKinney founded the agency on the philosophy that creativity applied to all aspects of marketing has more potential leverage on corporate profits than virtually any other factor.

In its earliest years, the agency would be recognized by leading trade organizations and win numerous industry awards from The One Show, Communication Arts and the Stephen Kelly Awards. One magazine recently said McKinney helped "set the standard for creativity in advertising in recent decades."

In 2002, after two decades at Leo Burnett where he had ascended to the position of chief executive officer of Leo Burnett USA, Brad Brinegar took over as president and CEO of McKinney. Since joining the agency, Brinegar has helped reign in high-profile clients such as Sony Electronics, Nike, Select Comfort, Virgin Mobile USA, Sherwin-Williams, Lands’ End, Polaris, and Southern Comfort. In 2006, "Advertising Age" made clear that Brinegar had “the touch for building out a creative shop” when McKinney was named one of the best ad agencies for 2005. In 2009, Brinegar would be named chairman of the agency advisory board of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

In 2003, McKinney became one of the first agencies to pioneer connection planning which determines the most innovative and creative ways of bringing brands and people together in mutually beneficial ways.

In that same year, McKinney hired a group of interactive experts and instead of creating a separate digital business unit or P&L, it injected them into the agency’s existing disciplines. (Today, 35% of the agency’s revenue comes from interactive activities and 88% of frontline staff are actively engaged in interactive work.)

In 2004, McKinney moved from Raleigh to Durham and took over what is now 60,000 square feet of vintage factory space on the American Tobacco Campus – an office designed to be one of the most collaborative environment in the advertising industry. That same year, McKinney would create The Roaming Gnome for online travel company Travelocity. The icon would help take Travelocity out of the cheap tickets business and put them into great travel experiences business. In year one, gross travel booked rose to $4.9 billion from 3.9 billion the year earlier. It would increase to $7.5 billion in 2005.

In 2005, McKinney created the "Art of the H3ist" for the launch of the Audi A3. The 90-day, 24/7 program was one of the most broadly awarded US campaign of the year, including "Creativity" magazine's Campaign of the Year Best in Show at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Mixx Awards, as well as the winner of two EFFIES and a Cannes Lion.

One year later in 2006, McKinney combined its three strategic disciplines (account planning, connection planning and interactive strategy) into one unique strategic offering and named Andrew Delbridge, previously director of account planning, to partner and chief strategy officer. The same year, former executive vice president of global marketing for Gap, Inc., Jeff Jones, succeeded Brinegar as president, who remained CEO and was added to the position of chairman. In 2007, the executive team elevated group creative director Jonathan Cude to chief creative officer as well. Cude became the fifth creative head in the history of the agency.

That year, the Cyber Won Report ranked McKinney 7th in the US and 35th in the world for 2006 interactive awards.

In 2008, McKinney's management acquired 100% interest in the agency from Havas.