Former MRY Exec Launches New Agency Decoded Advertising

Late last year, MRY Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Matt Rednor had enough with agency inefficiencies and quit. “Most creative agencies have it wrong," says Rednor. "They’re trying to adapt to the way digital has disrupted the ad industry, but evolution is too slow."

Now, Rednor is launching Decoded Advertising, a creative agency for today. "No agency is really set up for today's needs, let alone the future," he says. "If I could've stayed at an existing agency and fixed it, I would have. But the rate of digital disruption is happening so fast that even the agencies from the last few years are outdated at this point. Most are too big or too tactical to truly change from the inside out. The model is broken and the agency needed to be rebuilt from the ground up, not just evolved."

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One innovation is to align with like-minded partners. To that end, Decoded is launching with a strategic partner, social advertising and technology shop SocialCode, which provides social advertising managed services and technology, including for more than 50% of Fortune 100 companies.

As part of their alliance, Decoded will integrate with the SocialCode team, working out of the same space and collaborating to build effective marketing solutions for clients.

"It's never been more important to connect creative and media, so I knew I needed a partner to build around -- but it had to be the right partner," says Rednor. "We originally worked together on Visa and they were some of the smartest people I had crossed paths with. We have a similar vision, and I saw them as the future of media agencies. So the first thing I did on day one with Decoded was to reach out to forge an alliance."

The two agencies share the same philosophy. "We believe marketing must follow a framework where messaging and creative are continuously tested against specific audiences," said Laura O'Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder, SocialCode. "We have the real-time insights to understand consumers' wants and needs, and enable marketers to deliver better stories, more relevant experiences and improved products.

"Matt and the Decoded team have a similar mission and understanding of the need to inform creative with data. We are looking forward to working side-by-side with Decoded as we continue to evolve the way marketers interact with consumers.”

It was also an easy decision selecting a name. "Decoded sums up everything we're doing," says Rednor. "When you look at how digital has disrupted organizations, what brands need most is for someone to come in and make sense of it all. And not just from a content perspective, but also in terms of how it's changing the overall strategy and organization. It's also a challenge to us in everything we do. We're decoding how to build brands in a digital world.

"Decoding consumer behavior to uncover a deeper layer of insights to start anticipating, instead of always reacting. Decoding more informed creative so that you're not just getting a good idea, but the right idea as well."

Decoded has already landed its first client: Dollar Shave Club. The online men's grooming retailer selected Decoded as its first agency to build its brand in social content and advertising. Their first campaign will debut later in March.

Decoded -- based in New York City -- launches with eight employees. The agency has set up its Web site at www.decodedadvertising.com, on Instagram at @decodedadv, and on Twitter at @decodedadv.

"Brands are still stuck planning the same way they did in the past and it's time to try a new, smarter way," says Rednor. "The insights we can get from testing and iterating on social are unrivaled, and should be driving the lead strategy and creative ideas, not just the social specific ones. We're starting to crack this on video and it will be a game changer when we prove it in the coming months."

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