Announcing Blue Horse/MMT. Now the truth can be told!

They couldn’t stop us. Oh, they tried, but it was inevitable. Agency X has happened.

Blue Horse and Marx McClellan Thrun have joined forces. And what a force we’ll be!

Here’s the story. Last year, I renewed an old friendship with Rick Thrun. He and I worked together on a number of projects here in Milwaukee. A few awards were won and lots of fun was had. But we went our separate ways. Rick, an amazing illustrator, opted to stay in Milwaukee. I headed south to the wilds of Leo Burnett. Eventually Rick teamed up with Jeff McClellan. Rick and Jeff, together with Laura Marx, created and grew a terrific shop that consistently turned out wonderful break-through work for a select group of very smart clients.

Both organizations, Blue Horse and MMT, were casting about for new partners who could add to our respective talents. The more the two groups talked, the more we liked what was developing. We worked on a number of projects together. We talked, we examined, we strategized, and we plotted.

The business model at Blue Horse has been to become an architect or general contractor for our clients. We offered up some key core expertise, such as creative, media, client service and public relations. What we don’t have in-house, we have created partnerships to address. For example, we partner with LayerOne for e-commerce.

Our thinking is to deliver best-in-category talent on a very cost effective basis. The result is that we can match any agency our size and most who are considerably bigger, in terms of ability and experience. But we can customize the team for any assignment. So our clients don’t pay for overhead. They pay for results.

That business model will continue for Blue Horse/MMT. But our core creative product is now considerably stronger. It has more people, more depth and more experience than ever. And of course, we continue to offer depth in media as well as terrific people in public relations and client service.

Our mission is a simple one. We describe it as “Create. Collaborate. Integrate.” It means the best thinking coming from a team of great talent applied across all media. We continue to acknowledge the reality that consumers own brands, that they are the boss. And because of that, we’re here to make our clients look good with the boss.

We’re not the stars of the show. Our clients are. We are dedicated to making them a success.

Create. Collaborate. Integrate.

Sounds like a plan.