“Toy is a metaphor for the kind of work we want to do,” says Ari Merkin, founding partner at the just opened agency named Toy, New York. “No matter what age you are, everybody loves a toy–it’s something you share, it’s something you interact with, something you will go out of your way for. To us, that was a perfect way to describe the kind of work we want to do.”
Merkin, along with Anne Bologna, launched Toy late last year with Oxygen Media as its first client. Both were senior execs at the New York office of Fallon, which closed after the pair departed; Merkin was executive creative director at the shop, while Bologna served as president. A third partner, David Dabill, joined Toy earlier this month as chief operating officer, coming over from a similar role at Fallon, Minneapolis. While at Fallon, Merkin oversaw innovative creative for the likes of Virgin Mobile (the holiday promotion tagged “Chrismahanukwanzakah”); Brawny (revamping the Brawny Man icon); and Starbucks, for which the shop created “Glen,” a spot directed by Noam Murro of Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, that featured the band Survivor helping a guy reach middle management.
Opening their own shop made sense to the partners. “Working together at Fallon, Anne and I realized that we had the kind of partnership that makes for good leadership,” explains Merkin. “It was the kind of partnership that actually produced some pretty wonderful results–not just in the work, but in the agency culture. … We believed that the partnership had the makings of a great company.”
The hope is that the new agency will create work that makes clients stand out to consumers. “It’s a great kick, and we just want to do work that matters, and not be bound by traditional formulas and formats,” stresses Merkin, who while at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami, worked on the innovative launch campaign for the Mini Cooper. “We want to break through, and we want to have fun doing it–and create work that’s as exciting and as engaging as a new Toy.”
Smaller, more nimble ad shops abound these days, and Toy will play with the agency model as many do, offering clients executions that take advantage of new and old media. The agency currently has six fulltime staffers, whom Bologna refers to as “crossbreeds,” meaning they can tackle projects from a variety of angles. “The media world is pretty diverse these days, and in some ways it’s also true of the kind of people [who work here],” says Merkin. “That’s the kind of talent that we have been bringing on, and intend to bring on more of.”
The shop also offers what it calls the toy chest, which will offer clients access to companies and people with expertise across a wide range of fields, which can augment the ad world expertise offered by the agency and its staff. “The toy chest is really an opportunity for us to bring to a client’s business what we consider to be best in breed people–individuals or companies–who can help us either conceive or execute marketing solutions and ideas,” relates Bologna, explaining that some of the experts in the toy chest might include anthropologists, architects or event planners. Merkin relates that the roster in the toy chest offers the shop’s clients more solutions than what might be offered at a larger, more traditional shop. “We’re not a freelance model,” he notes. “Toy is a house for big, strategic and creative thinking. A big agency will house all of its services under one roof. Toy chest allows us to go to outside sources to help produce and inspire ideas.”
BREATHE RIGHT
Earlier this month, Toy broke its first work for Oxygen, a promotional campaign for a new original series called Campus Ladies, which follows two middle-aged housewives as they return to college, and engage in typical undergrad activities–wild parties and all the wrong men. The work, which has an irreverent, humorous tone, includes some traditional television spots, which were directed by Tom Kuntz of bicoastal/international MJZ. Additionally, there will be promos on the network, radio, print, online, transit, out of home and guerilla marketing. The TV spots include one execution featuring some rather mature cheerleaders who apply their talents to rooting for the freshman, while the radio work includes mock PSAs from a group billing itself as Students Against Overage Drinking, while bus ads feature comments from critics, including “Best comedy of the season”–granted, it’s only January. Other elements include Campus Ladies branded toilet paper in bars and a print ad that sends up the movie poster for The Graduate. On the promo front, the Campus Ladies will take viewer calls on another Oxygen show, Talk Sex With Sue Johanson. Merkin directed the promo work. “It wasn’t the first time [directing], but I’m still not very good at it. I’m learning as I go,” jokes Merkin. “These were pretty simple. It was really writing scripts and directing the talent, so it wasn’t all that hard for me, but I’m not about to kick off my directing career. I kind of like what I do at the moment, and I want to leave the directing up to those who are far better than I am.”
Now that work has wrapped on the Campus Ladies push, Toy will focus on more overall branding for the network. Merkin relates that the shop is also working on projects for marketers he wasn’t at liberty to discuss. Both Merkin and Bologna plan to grow the agency slowly, selecting whom they work with carefully. “We’re not looking for clients who want a brand name and a commodity product,” states Merkin, relating to large companies who add a smaller, creatively focused shop to the agency roster more for the cool factor than the work. “Anne and I both do our best to make sure that clients are coming to us for the right reasons, and we screen them pretty heavily. We’re going to be defined by our clients, and so there’s nothing more important to us than making sure we date as much as possible before we marry.”
And Merkin hopes those professional marriages result in good work. “We’re having a lot of fun,” he says. “Opening an agency is a big scary move, and people tell you all about how hard it’s going to be, and I now understand what they were talking about. But the part I didn’t expect was the total joy of being an entrepreneur–that’s kind of unexpected. We have a long way to go to become what we really want to be, but the seed is there, the spark is there.”