Name: Terri Meyer
Title: CEO, co-founder of Terri and Sandy
Years in the ad industry: 28
First job in the ad industry: Art Director, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles
Terri Meyer knew she wanted to be an art director from the time she was 15 years old. After studying advertising at the University of Texas at Austin, she worked at Kenrick as a creative director before returning to art direction at Wells Rich Greene’s Gardner, where she worked on Six Flags, her first big TV spots.
Her big break was at DMB&B St. Louis, where she worked on accounts like Anheuser Busch and met Sandy Greenberg, who would become her long-term creative partner.
After a stint at J. Walter Thompson in Chicago, she headed to Darcy’s office in New York, a city she’s made her home ever since. She ran the M&M and Mars brands, and Greenberg joined her shortly after. The pair then moved to JWT, where they worked for James Patterson before he dove headlong into writing. After 5 years, Meyer headed to DraftFCB, where she stayed for 13 years and launched the award-winning "Milk’s Favorite Cookie" campaign for Oreo.
In 2010, Meyer and Greenberg co-founded their own agency. Terri & Sandy attracted clients like Gerber, Avon, Disney and Peeps, as well as a host of new generation brands.
"The best part of this business is building a team, much like we build brands," Meyer says. "We seek driven, industrious people who want to make an impact on our culture and our path forward. We have two founders and 43 entrepreneurs."
Here are the executions Meyer says have mattered the most to her and her career.
Client: Kraft
Brand: Planters
Agency: DraftFCB
Work: "Perfume"
Year: 2008
This spot was Kraft’s first venture into Super Bowl advertising, and "creating it was like giving birth with a hundred people in the delivery room," Meyer says. The team that came up with idea had drawn it on a napkin, but the physical humor of the spot landed it in the top 10 on USA Today’s AdMeter.
Not everyone agreed on spot’s quality, though. When Donny Deutsch said he wasn’t a fan of it, Conan O’Brien countered, quipping that he’d bought 10 cases of nuts after watching it. "We’ve always loved Conan," Meyer says.
Client: Nabisco
Brand: Oreo
Agency: DraftFCB
Work: "Train"
Year: 2008
In 2008, Beijing was hosting the Summer Olympics, and Meyer had been running the Oreo business for 8 years. "We took this spot to our clients as a proactive idea," she says. The spot began shooting in China, but the government shut down production halfway through, for reasons Meyer still doesn’t understand, and it had to be completed in Australia.
Even so, the Wall Street Journal ranked "Train" the second best Olympic spot to come out of the US, even though Oreo wasn’t an official Olympic sponsor.
Client: Nestlé
Brand: Gerber
Agency: Terri & Sandy
Work: "Gerber Babies"
Year: 2016
During her time back at FCB, Meyer spearheaded the Gerber pitch. "Then we had to pitch it again when Nestlé purchased it from Novartis," she says. "As you can imagine, when we started our own agency, Gerber was at the top of our list of the brands we wanted most."
In 2013, the relatively new Terri & Sandy had its first chance to pitch Gerber, creating this simple, whimsical campaign of baby doppelgängers. "After 10 years of working on this brand," Meyer says, "Gerber isn’t just an account. It’s our baby."
Client: Disney
Brand: Disney Princess
Agency: Terri & Sandy
Work: "Be A Champion"
Year: 2016
Cinderella was Meyer’s favorite Disney princess as a child. "I loved her blue gown and sparkly tiara, but even more, I was captivated by her spirit," Meyer says. "Cinderella never, ever gave up on her dreams."
This campaign was a chance for Meyer to convey that same inspiring message to kids, she says. "Be compassionate like Belle. Be strong like Mulan. Be brave like Merida."
Client: Barba Men’s Grooming Boutique
Agency: Terri & Sandy
Work: "Strands for Trans"
Year: 2017
Meyer attributes the success of this campaign to the trust Barba’s owner Xavier Cruz placed in the agency. "He fell in love with the idea of ‘Strands for Trans’ and let us run with it," Meyer says. "He never changed a word of copy or a single visual. He respected our talent, drive and passion as an agency and believed we would do right by him."
The campaign earned more than 14 million media impressions, and now salons in every state have joined the "Strands for Trans" movement.