Creative

Cases

• 

  We Don't Make Sense. We Make Chicken.

  Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

• 

  Prepare for Misuse

  The Ad Council

News

• 

  Agency 100 2024: McKinney Health

  McKinney Health has been named a Top 100 health agency by Medical Marketing and Media – just in time to celebrate its two-year anniversary. The agency opened its doors on June 8, 2022, and has grown revenue by 2,700% since the beginning of 2023. Client wins in that time include Indivior’s Sublocade and Perserus, Biogen, Alcon and Nestlé Gerber. And McKinney Health has grown from 12 staff at its start to 50 by the end of 2023. “We started doing internal presentations to explain why we were getting into this business — why health and wellness wasn’t just something you could do great work in, but great work that could make a material difference in people’s lives,” McKinney CEO Joe Maglio said. “What happened was that people who worked on mass consumer brands started asking if they could do health. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, this is real.’” McKinney Health Managing Director Michael McNamara added, “We want to add wellness; we don’t want to be just pharma. And we’d love to push the boundaries of innovation in social media with some of these clients.”

  MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media, 06/11/2024

• 

  McKinney Named to 2025 Ad Age A-List for Second Year in a Row

  For the second year in a row, McKinney has made Ad Age’s A-List Standouts. This repeat accomplishment makes McKinney the only agency to appear on both Ad Age’s Best Places to Work and A-List in 2024 and 2025. The feature highlights McKinney’s international expansion to Toronto with our increased remit with Popeyes, new business wins, including Texas Pete and Citizen Watch, and the launch of our proprietary AI tool, BrandAI.

  AdAge, 03/10/2025

• 

  McKinney: Best Places to Work 2025 | Ad Age

  McKinney is No. 23 in Ad Age Best Places to Work 2025 among companies with 151+ employees.

  Ad Age, 01/27/2025

• fastcompany.com

  Creative, media and influencer agency McKinney was honored at the 2024 Fast Company 100 Best Workplaces for Innovators awards reception last evening. This award recognizes organizations that demonstrate an inspiring commitment to encouraging and developing innovation at all levels, shining a light on McKinney as having one of Fast Companies Top 100 most innovative company cultures. “It’s quite an honor to have Fast Company recognize that we’re fostering a creative culture at McKinney on par with some of the world’s most innovative companies,” said Joe Maglio, CEO of McKinney. “I love that this particular award honors the employees driving innovation for our clients and our business. Congratulations to the McKinney teams across all of our offices on this well-deserved recognition.” The 2024 Best Workplaces for Innovators list ranks 100 winners from a variety of industries, including entertainment, biotech, consumer packaged goods, marketing, education, healthcare, and many more. To earn Best Workplaces for Innovators recognition, all of this year’s winners completed an application that addressed questions about projects, investments, company-wide programs, and workplace culture. “Innovation is a global priority that cuts across all industries, and this year’s list reflects that diversity,” says Brendan Vaughan, editor in chief of Fast Company. McKinney is being honored for its employee-driven approach to AI, including the AI Taskforce leading the agency’s AI exploration, experimentation and implementation. By building a private AI server, or “AI Playground,” the Taskforce offered a protected environment for agency-wide experimentation. “The best practices, top vendors and guest speakers and cutting-edge initiatives that our AI Taskforce have brought to the table benefit everyone at McKinney, from our Media and Health practices to our Strategy, Creative and Account teams,” said Gretchen Walsh, President of McKinney. “Investing in and empowering the humans driving the AI Taskforce has been critical to growing our agency’s capabilities and helping our clients stay ahead of the curve.” The AI Taskforce has produced several exciting innovations at McKinney over the past year, including “Are You Blacker Than ChatGPT,” a provocative game launched in time for Black History Month that sheds light on how AI bias can manifest in AI technology. Another outcome has been a new client offering called BrandAI, a proprietary tool that helps clients measure the amount and quality of the attention they’re getting in the competition for minds, culture and wallets.

  FastCo, 09/10/2024

• 

  McKinney’s new president, influencer strategy and health and wellness practice | Ad Age Agency News

  Gretchen Walsh, who joined McKinney in 2004, was just named McKinney’s first female President in its 54-year history. She will report to McKinney CEO Joe Maglio, who said the move was necessary to help manage the agency, which has grown 3x since he joined in 2018. Part of McKinney’s growth is attributed to the launch of its new health and wellness practice and its influencer expertise, which was added after the acquisition of influencer agency August United in January along with performance media company Tailwind. Maglio’s focus for McKinney is to position it as more than a core creative agency by integrating influencer marketing across the agency beyond content creation. Another big win for the agency was being named creative agency of record for Popeyes at the beginning of 2023. Jeff Klein, who joined Popeyes as its chief marketing officer in 2022 and helped the brand pick McKinney, was previously the CMO of Little Caesars when McKinney won that account. And though winning Little Caesars helped open doors for the agency and debunk the perception of being a regional agency, Maglio said he is cognizant of not losing the agency’s Durham identity as it grows. “It’s still our biggest office, I would never want to lose that foundation.”

  Ad Age, 06/08/2023

Clients

About

McKinney is a creative, media and influencer agency that gets attention for brands. In 2024, McKinney was named to Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators list, as well as Ad Age’s A-List and its list of Best Places to Work, reinforcing the agency's commitment to providing an exceptional workplace culture where employees thrive and creativity flourishes. McKinney Health, the agency’s Pharma and Wellness practice launched in 2022, was named to MM+M Magazine’s 2024 Agency 100 list. A Certified B Corporation, McKinney is part of the Cheil Worldwide network and has offices across the country, including Durham, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and New York. McKinney has been recognized by Cannes Lions, Effies, The One Show, D&AD, ANDY, CLIO, LIA, the Shortys, and The Webby Awards, among others. Client partners include brands such as Popeyes, Blue Diamond Growers, Little Caesars, Pampers, Henkel, Samsung, Indivior, Sherwin-Williams, Biogen and the Ad Council. For more information, visit mckinney.com.

People

• 

  Joe Maglio

  CEO

• 

  Gretchen Walsh

  President

• 

  Lyle Yetman

  Co-Chief Creative Officer

• 

  Omid Amidi

  Co-Chief Creative Officer

• 

  Jasmine Dadlani

  Chief Strategy Officer

• 

  Michael McNamara

  Managing Director, McKinney Health

• 

  Bill Mattis

  Managing Director

• 

  Swapnil Patel

  Managing Director

• 

  Chandra Guinn

  Executive Director, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion