But many industry watchers nonetheless were surprised when United left Fallon, which had held the account for a decade, to throw in with a startup. The long gestation period for the Olympic ads only ratcheted up the pressure for them to be successful.

No resting on laurels
Unlike an Olympic star, who can dine forever off his gold-medal performance, a modern ad agency can’t rest on its laurels. Next month, BD’M will launch new creative work for Best Buy’s home appliance business.

And at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week, the agency was active in several different media on behalf of client Applied Materials, a California-based nano-manufacturing company that puts the silicon coating on computer chips. With about $10 billion in annual sales, it’s one of the biggest companies you’ve never heard of - and BD’M is setting out to change that, focusing on Applied Materials’ move into solar panels.

In Denver, BD’M projected ads onto the sides of buildings downtown and ran a full-page ad in the Rocky Mountain edition of the Wall Street Journal. Headed “An Open Letter from the Sun,” the irreverent piece urged America to move forward on solar energy. Billboards reinforced the effort, offering a text message from the sun (text SUN to 42107, if you’re interested).

BD’M partner and co-president David Murphy left his post as president of Saatchi & Saatchi’s Los Angeles office in early 2007 to join the fledgling agency, a decision he likens to “running away and joining the circus.”

“I left an agency of 300 people to join two guys with wires hanging from the ceiling and no clients,” Murphy said. “But Stuart is a very persistent guy.”

Murphy said he’s excited about the potential of mobile marketing, which he views as still in its early stages. The potential of mobile is not so much “beaming ads at people,” Murphy said, but the ability to turn every offline ad into a two-way interaction by adding a text call to action rather than a Web URL.

Marketers have never had so many tools at their disposal, Murphy said, and new applications have never gone mainstream so quickly: “If you want to make a 21-year-old laugh, refer to the Web as ‘new media.’ ”

But NBC’s ratings for the Olympics show that the old media, used smartly, still have some life in them. More than two out of three Americans watched at least part of NBC’s broadcasts from Beijing.

“In some cases, a TV ad may be the best solution,” Murphy said. “It’s like the first time you got the Crayola box of 64 crayons. When you suddenly have all these options, you try mixing all the wild colors together. But sometimes, red and black and brown make the best picture.

“Choose the medium that’s right at the time."