Liberal arts college geeks should get a kick out of this – sports company, Kan Jam (the the closest one can get to the ultimate frisbee gods), have selected their first AOR – Cenergy. Congrats to all, but here’s the very cool part – Cenergy will take an equity stake in Kan Jam instead of straight up cash for creation of digital and social-media advertising campaigns. Not to worry, Cenergy has some other big names clients including Oxy (see ad above), Comcast, Pearl Izumi and TBS.
Cenergy follows many an agency done the road of tying their flag to a budding business. If you recall, this was one of the big pushes of ad agency Anomaly. Other shops on this equity roster include Brooklyn Brothers and the iconic example of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners who made some nice change pushing Snapple back in the day. Meanwhile, Crispin Porter has some stake in Method, the eco-friendly detergents cleaning brand.
Some may consider the equity race to be risky and hell, it is. We’re talking about the success of company who you just do the advertising, possibly the design for. You don’t get to pick the CMO nor how the budget will be spent. It’s a big risk, but in when it pays off? It pays of big.