Mullen

Update: Apparently, HG is a regular marathon runner. Um, and he's been tweeting the whole thing. What? Who does that? Check it out.

Oh Mullen, your efforts are sweet and kind. This is Mullen Chief Strategy Officer Stephen Hahn-Griffiths right before the start of the Boston marathon. He looks psyhed doesn't he? I imagine a few things run through one's head before starting a race like this — what the hell am I doing? I wonder if I'll have to pee/poop while I'm running. Why did I eat Mexican last night and drink coffee this morning?

Hahn-Griffiths undoubtedly tried not to think about such things, and instead maybe focused on the new shop his agency is building in Boston. Just 35 days left til the place is open. Um, why do we care though? I hope the carpet matches the curtains — isn't it awkward when people mess that up? Yeesh.

Btw HG is running for the Boston Public Library. People don't read so much anymore, but it's still nice that HG is giving back via running away from life and all its big decisions — like picking carpet/curtain arrangements for one's new Boston area office. Should they match? Should the clash? Should they just say screw it and go wood floors and open windows?

More: "Mullen Gets Some GM Love"

Mullen has been having a tough time. The shop is consistently in the news for layoffs, yet there's another type of staff change taking place at the agency. Ruth E. Winig has been promoted to senior vice president of public relations and social marketing. She formerly served as senior vice president director of innovation. In her new position, Winig will set the strategic agenda for experiential, social media and brand connectivity programs by Mullen and its marketing-to-women arm, Frank About Women.

So, congrats to Ruth! On that note, while the agency may be laying off folks from the Massachusetts office, the Winston-Salem shop, (where Ruth and Frank About Women are based) is hiring: account executive, digital strategist, PR new biz development, project coordinator and more. Check out all the listings here.

More: Amalgamated Keeps The Ball Rolling

Mullen laid off 40 people this past Wednesday. According to the agency "it was an isolated situation relating to spending reductions by specific clients in one practice group." So, there you go. However, Mullen has just won the account of the American Diabetes Association after a review. Let us all hope that the win keeps the shop from laying off anyone else.

More: Modernista Might Not Be So Modern Much Longer

One fine day, Bob Pirrmann, the associate creative director with Mullen in Boston went on certified recreational dive at the New England Aquarium. Pirrmann was a part of a group of Mullen staffers who got to enjoy the oceanic playground after creating pro-bono award-winning work for the aquarium's new exhibit, "Sharks & Rays."

While petting a 560-pound sea turtle named Myrtle, Pirrman lost his wedding ring. Seriously, this is where it starts to get very, very cute. The Aquarium's divers were alerted to the missing ring, but after three months, Pirrman purchased another ring. And then... eureka! This past week, Mike Whyte, a part-time diver for the Aquarium since 2001, was vacuuming food debris from several inches of sand near the bottom of the tank. As he worked through some delicate finger corals (oh the irony!), he noticed an unusual shape. He put the band on his own finger.

Okay, so cute right? Wait, wait... it gets even more sickening. Whyte and Pirrman are going to do a joint dive together to see the three-month resting place of his wedding band. Yeah. I know. It's almost too much.

More: Mullen Gets Some GM Love

Despite this crap economy, GM's stock price nosediving 22% in early trades today and the companies cut backs on spending, Mullen has been tapped to handle its customer relationship management programs along with Campbell-Ewald. Yes, customer relations are important for GM. You gotta keep the few customers ya' got left. Especially in the face of recalls and bad experiences taking up tons of code across the internet.

Mullen also just snagged the SunTrust business. Mullen recently added some high level folks to their roster in August: Stephen Hahn-Griffiths Executive Vice President, Director of Brand Planning and Matt Fischvogt as Creative Director, Innovation and Integration. Looks like it's paying off. They've got the team buzzing and nailing some nice sized wins.

Okay, okay... Mullen gets its own category on the left hand side bar as of right this second.

More: GM/OnStar to Campbell Ewald; XM in Review
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Little-big agency, Mullen, has been selected as the AOR on the SunTrust Banks account. The shop had been on the Wachovia account until just recently when it shifted to Ogilvy. Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm sure Mullen is super pleased with how it's looking.

SuntTrust has been rolling out advertising touting their stability. The current slug rolling out on print ads is ""Trust is in our name. And we remain determined to live up to it." Despite years of rumors that SunTrust would be bought out, the bank has held firm against offers. Trust in stability remember?
The bank is slated to announce there 3Q earnings today.

Congrats to Mullen!

More: Mullen Gets A New Commander In Chief

Stephen Hahn-Griffiths is the new EVP, director of brand planning at Mullen. He came to the shop via Doner who just won the Amazon account. Adweek notes the recent hiring spree that has gone on at Mullen, which includes Matt Fischvogt, CD innovation and integration; Julie Coulton in June as SVP, director of digital media and ECD Mark Wenneker.

A fast, loose recap of Mullen's movement this year so far: In May, Mullen launched a blog for the public relations practice called relentlessPR that was started up this year. You see, CCO Edward Boches (pictured above) believes that "an integrated environment is the best place to practice PR both for the public relations professional and the client." Hear! Hear!

The Wenham, MA shop is currently in the pitch for the WSJ, but they've already been cut from the $145M estimated pitch for Wachovia on which they were defending. They also lost Marshall's to Greed, Sex. This year, they landed Adventures By Disney and something called, Kingsdown Mattress and Hollywood Tans. Does that make up for the Wachovia account? Probably not, but winning is winning.

Meanwhile, their Mediahub business, which handles media chores, has been nailing accounts at a rapid clip fro Orbitz to Timberland. They kept their chores on the LendingTree account while creative went to EuroRSCG.

Mullen is diverse. Their bottom line with all these little businesses is probably intact. Wachovia or no Wachovia. Sure it hurt, but they're not going to sink anytime soon.