conscience

My father was always aware of right and wrong. He had very defined moral guidelines. And yet, he was respectful and open to differing points of view and new ideas. I hope he passed those same traits on to me. I hope, if nothing else, he gave me a conscience. To my father, this site is dedicated to you.

What you did for me.

You gave me a career I am proud of. You gave my family a wonderful life. You taught me humility. You gave me opportunity. You never penn...

The most shared ad of 2013.

Guess what commercial it is? Hump day for GEICO just surpassed Dove Sketches as the most viral ad of 2013. Mike, Mike, Mike Hughes is eve...

And the Emmy goes to.....

Crazy to think we won an Emmy for Clouds over Cuba. Still pinching myself. I think the most gratifying thing of all is that the agency is no...

Here are all the young people.

The One Club is an amazing force in the business and I'm not just saying that because I'm on the board. Mary and Kevin and crew have...

Hue & Cry.

Exciting to see our very own in-house motion graphics capability taking off. Lead by the extremely talented Magnus Hierta, this crew has don...

11 Lions. Are you serious?

Still hasn't sunk in. Clouds over Cuba won 11 Lions at Cannes, including three Golds. Bummed we missed out on at least one Grand Prix be...

Art meets commerce.

The latest for Morgan Stanley. It's amazes me still that there are people in our business who think what we do is a science. I'm gla...

Forecast: Clouds giving way to sunshine.

Another big night at One Show Interactive for Martin and the JFK Clouds team. Clouds over Cuba won a gold and two silver pencils, while the ...

The first Ace winner.

Introducing Chidyaonga Shalita, the first winner of the The Ace Scholarship. The Ace is given to a male, minority graduating senior in the S...

Wonderful.

There's a lot to love about the new Oreo work. What I love most? It's one of our first truly global campaigns. Couldn't be proud...

Simple is always the best way to go.

Too often, we get caught up in our own underwear and forget the power of a simple, truthful insight coupled with a simple, truthful execu...

Look out, Norman Mailer.

GEICO has been a trailblazer on so many fronts. How to buy insurance. How to sell it. How to advertise it. Basically, turning a once comple...

The golf buddies are back.

Bubba, Hunter and Lee Westwood are back for PING in a new series of spots. A small crew spent the day cranking out four in 10 hours. And it ...

Good and Tough. And pretty cool.

We are famous for our ads. But what most people don't know is our staff is so much more creative than that. 500 people strong who surpri...

If you haven't told Mike lately....

How much you love him, here's your chance: http://wealllovemike.martinagency.com/ Thanks, Martin team, for putting this one up so fas...

An Angry Effie finalist.

I just love this campaign for Kraft and Stove Top. Just starting to hit the award circuit. Funny idea. Funnier case study video. Nice job, B...

When love and hate collide with an idea.

Cool album cover design and concept for the release of Def Leppard's latest single. Came through the doors via EP John McAdorey, buddie...

Our heart and soul.

Mike Hughes, the long time heart and soul of The Martin Agency, has been fighting lung cancer for almost a dozen years. Mike is probably the...

Hu, Hut, Hut.

Pizza Hut has a big presence in the run-up to the Super Bowl. Andy and team created this video and it's up, calling for "hut, hut, ...

Blowing up Chihuly.

Dale Chihuly is here at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and we made something pretty fun to promote not only the show, but his craft, as we...

Lincoln hair comes to RVA.

This past year, Steven Spielberg came to our little town and shot a big movie called Lincoln. Pretty cool stuff. A lot of friends and co-wor...

We did it again.

We finished the job. Obama winning Virginia again in 2012. Not the same feeling as 2008, but still something we will never forget. About a w...

What if?

50 years ago, the world was on the brink of nuclear war. Thanks to the diplomacy of our president, John F. Kennedy, the worst never happene...

One small tweet feat.

A timely tribute to Neil Armstrong and another testament to our growing in-house digital creds. Everything done at Martin. Launched three w...

Dave Martin lives on.

He started The Martin Agency in 1965. He believed in the power of creativity to transform a brand. He was a big guy with a big heart. I neve...

Bell Labs. At Martin.

Been reading an incredible book "The Idea Factory: The history of Bell Labs."An amazing look at innovation and how it happened ...

Want a million followers?

Who wouldn't? Twitter followers are the new currency. That was the inspiration behind Twitterich, a social media experiment cooked ...

Pencil love.

A special night in NYC for the Walmart team. A bronze pencil for Younger Skin for Walmart. And a silver for the Conveyor TV campaign. Fittin...

Cannonball coming.

The Walmart team cleaned up at the local Addy Awards last week, winning 15 cannonballs. "Younger Skin" was the big winner, taking ...

Robin will always be with us.

You were everything to all of us. Friend. Audience. Mentor. Teacher. Parent. You knew our ticks, habits and moods. And you always had the ri...

Print. Yes, we still do it.

It's been a long time since I posted any print here. These posters were created by Brian Williams and Matt Wojtysiak using Matt's or...

Meet Robin's Egg.

We are so proud to announce a new app created entirely at Martin. It was inspired by a close friend, Robin, who was diagnosed with cancer a ...

January in the books. Really?

Crazy start to 2012. Here's a few posts right in a row to catch up. Had the great honor to be invited to the One Club for the latest Hal...

Merry Christmas.

The wall below is outside my office at Martin. When we re-imagined our workspace and moved in a year ago, we changed much more than the desk...

Frank. The gift no one wants.

Our first "planned" viral for WM: frankthefruitcake.com. He's part fruit, part nuts, all annoying. Frank is voiced by Bobcat G...

Our tribute to simplicity.

When Steve Jobs passed away, all of us Apple devotees felt a huge loss. A strangely personal loss. Most of us never meet him. But that was t...

Welcome home.

Troops are coming home from Iraq and that's good news. For Veteran's Day, we created this tribute for Walmart. For me personally, ev...

Wild about Harry.

Every few months I have lunch with Harry Jacobs, One Show Hall of Fame member and the guy who basically put Richmond and Martin on the ad ma...

11 in 2011.

"Dance" is the 11th Walmart conveyor spot to be posted on the respected site creativity.com. An amazing achievement. Congrats to t...

They keep coming.

A couple new favorites in the "Every cart tells a story" campaign. More in the works.

50 years ago.

Class differences. Race tension. Multiple wars. Economic woes. Political battles on the left and right. 1961 looks a lot like 2011. We'r...

A good show.

15 finalists at The One Show this year. The encouraging thing: first time finalists in Design and Entertainment, plus multiple nominations ...

Re-imagine, re-think, re-____________.

That's the theme of the Art Gallery within the new space at Martin. We're kicking off the first show June 22, featuring artists Robe...

Every cart tells a story.

One of the first spots in what we hope will be a nice, long campaign for the world's biggest company. The idea was simple: Walmart has l...

Hit it Bubba long.

A lot of fun directing this package featuring pros Bubba Watson, Lee Westwood, Louis Oosthuizen, Marc Wilson and Hunter Mahan. Worked with D...

Cancer meets Bieber fever.

On March 1st, Usher wished Justin Bieber a happy 17th birthday by posting this re-mix music video by Mysto & Pizzi on Facebook and Twitt...

His speech is now our speech.

Long time, no post. Up to my eyeballs in production since January. So let's catch up. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of JFK's fam...

Thank you.

To Brian and Wade. Norma and Darbs. Mike and John. Anne Bev, Pete, D'Arcy, Neel, Tedd, Tom, Lee, Dean, TD, Ben and DS. To my kids and lo...

An idea writer. R.I.P.

Ted Sorensen gave voice to JFK's ideas, visions and dreams for the future. "Ask not what your country can do for you...", ...

Re-inventing the birthday card.

What if Rihanna could call your best friend and wish her happy birthday? What if 25 of your family members could send grandma a personalized...

The absurdity of it all.

He's lowered taxes for 95% of Americans. He saved the car and banking industries. The stock market is way up since he took office. And h...

The latest: Usher.

The Birthday Gallery continues to fill up. We recently shot Usher at The Greenwich Hotel and more big stars are coming. So far, thousands of...

Here's to more birthdays.

This year, 11 million cancer survivors will celebrate a birthday. Progress. 20 years ago, the cure rate for cancer was 1 out of 3. Today, it...

Tweet, tweet. JFK is running for president.

Right now, JFK is running for president - on Twitter. Every day, every stop, every speech is being re-broadcast as it happened 50 years ago....

Did not expect this.

We had no idea when we set out to go to the moon last year that we would end up in Cannes. What a ride. Thanks to all the amazing talent tha...

Rockin' the suburbs, downtown.

The National is an old vaudeville theater in downtown Richmond that has been converted to a popular venue for musicians touring on the east ...

The real winner.

We won two Yellow Pencils last night at D&Ad for wechoosethemoon.com, our recreation in real-time of the Apollo 11 moon landing. But the...

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