PIXEL MAVERICK

For the people that do follow my blog (…the few, the proud, ha) you are aware that before I joined The Martin Agency, I worked on the Pizza Hut account at IMC2 in Dallas, TX.

So, when I found out a few months ago that Pizza Hut had invited The Martin Agency to participate in their agency review my first thought was …

“This is too good to be true.  There is no way I could get lucky enough to take all of the talented colleagues and clients from my IMC2 past and combine them with all the talented colleagues of my Martin Agency present.  That would be like having my cake and eating it too.”

Well apparently luck is on my side, because today Pizza Hut selected The Martin Agency to replace BBDO as Lead Creative Agency.  I can’t think of a better way to kick off my weekend and the holidays!

So why do I think the combination of The Martin Agency + IMC2 + Pizza Hut is going to equal success, awards, and a whole lotta pizza sales?  Here is a little list of some of the reasons to justify that prediction:

• Mike Hughes
• The Pizza Hut iPhone App
• “Save Money. Live Better”
• Brian Niccol
• PizzaHut.com
• “15 Minutes Can Save You 15% …”
• Andy Azula
• “What Can Brown Do For You?”
• John Adams
• Scott Lindsey
• “So Easy a Caveman Can Do It”
• Bernard Acoca & Tressie Lieberman
• Nation of Go
• Restaurant Quality Pasta
• Microsoft Store
• Pizza Hut Facebook

The list of great things now combined could go on and on.

I am not sure which thing I am most excited about — The big big win for The Martin Agency, The opportunity to combine my past with my present, or the chance to work on a multi-agency team that is starting off with an automatic bond together and will produce some truly innovative and integrated work for a great client.  I think I will just be excited about them all.

Stay tuned for the work because it will come quickly, and I expect big collaboration in 2010.  Papa Johns and Dominos should be a little worried, because they are in trouble now.

I just watched the video review of the new iPhone app for Pizza Hut, and am so happy for the team at imc2 and Pizza Hut for such a great looking app after what I am sure has been a long process of creative, reviews, explaining the importance of iPhone specific UX design to a room of “huh?” faces, development, breakthroughs, delays, and late-game-twists.

As a former member of this team, I can say with 100% honesty that this app looks nothing like what we were originally brainstorming …and thank god for that because this is TONS better than we were thinking at that time.  I personally had nothing to do with this app, but as a former team leader for the imc2 PH team I am definitely proud of them and hope they get the credit they deserve for working their asses off while still managing to be brilliant.

Great work PH and imc2 Team!