How Conceptual Thinking Blossoms at Flower Shop

New York-based creative agency Flower Shop was co-founded in 2022 by CEO Mary Lou Bunn and CCO Al Merry. The pair met at TBWA\Chiat\Day, where they worked on pitches together and first discovered their chemistry. Mary Lou, a lifelong New Yorker, brings her business and growth expertise with a more “digitally savvy” approach, says the Scotland native Al, while he has had a more traditional journey through creative shops like BBH and Wieden + Kennedy on both sides of the pond. 

While Al is “the free flowing, unabashed, creative” to her “straightness”, Mary Lou says that they share similar values, forming a rare synergy where both the creative and business minds of the company practice in the same way. “And those are the shared values of ‘no nonsense’,” explains Al. 

Above: Al Merry, CCO

“There's no egos, no distractions, none of the palaver it’s just: ‘Do we like doing this? Let's do it the way we want to do it and get it done with no fuss’. And I think the team's responded to that, because it’s the clearest and cleanest way to work.”

Before becoming a ‘proper agency’, as it were, it was a “no-brainer” for Al to bring Mary Lou on board as the first clients started to express interest. But from their second conversation together, it became clear they were both invested in the prospect - especially Mary Lou, who was excited by solving new business problems once again after a stint working at a start-up. 

Above: Mary Lou Bunn, CEO

“We had a lot of fun in those days, doing the classic ‘rent a huge office space so it looks like we're bigger than we actually are’ - using a WeWork that looked great on Zoom and so people could come in. It was a fun time, but we were really flying by the seat of our pants, in terms of being a business. In terms of the work, it was fine… It was just trying to convince people that we were a safe pair of hands for a client to spend a decent amount of money with.”

So when the time came to establish a more permanent physical location in New York City, the team decided to lift the shutters in an old - you guessed it - flower shop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side (Rivington Street, specifically), a more creative and comparatively gritty area to the more gentrified local neighbourhoods, rich in culture, art, music and an artistic heritage. 

Upon first visit, they fell in love with the storefront, charmed by 15 years of dirt and debris that the previous occupant had left behind, and the beautiful, imaginative work that used to fill the space. 

Taking a whistle-stop tour along Rivington Street with LBB’s Ben Conway, Al says, “Half a block away over the other side [of the Bowery] are all the bougie stores that you could imagine, whereas we are still a little bit of an an enclave of the Lower East Side - and I particularly think it got set back a couple years in covid, as well. So it feels even edgier than it used to be.”

“There were a bunch of hotels, condos and luxury boutiques going up on this side,” adds Mary Lou, “which was halted totally [by covid]. This is one of the only corners of the city that feels like the New York that I knew.” Having grown up in ‘80s New York, the Flower Shop CEO shares that she’s downhearted with the gentrification and commercialisation of most of the city, but glad that the Lower East Side identity has been somewhat preserved around Rivington Street and the Bowery - areas that fed the imaginations of artists like Richard Prince and Martin Scorsese.

“Everything happens on Rivington Street,” adds Al, continuing along the sidewalk as he and CFO/COO Bill Afonso point out their local haunts: Trapizzino, the Italian restaurant that took them in while the office was under construction, offering WiFi, a place to call home and plenty of meatballs; The Hideout Chai Bar, a favourite of Mary Lou’s; the Hotel on Rivington, which becomes a campsite for the team when working on “an insane client pitch”; Economy Candy, an old-timey sweetshop which has become a Friday ritual for Al’s two young sons.

Influenced by his time at Wieden + Kennedy London’s Hanbury Street office, where passersby would often peer in and knock on the door, Al had always loved the idea of having a shop window, rather than being in a Madison Avenue skyscraper. “There’s something about being street level,” he says. “Looking out at the world and the people and seeing life actually unfolding outside the window is cool. We're not up in the clouds!”

Neighbouring business owners and residents in the building have welcomed them with open arms and even feel comfortable in poking their heads into the Flower Shop to say hello. “For us, in terms of the pulse that we're creating and the work that goes on here, it's huge,” says Mary Lou. Not to mention the tight support network of independent shops that have also opened locally and offer a sense of community, such as Isle of Any and Gus.

Still a small outfit - five full-timers and a short list of frequent collaborators - the Flower Shop team is hands-on with all aspects of the business, be it the creative, or dealing with the inevitable IT and plumbing emergencies. Being hands-on creatively is Al’s natural happy place, bypassing much of the bureaucracy that comes with larger organisations. However, getting stuck-in with the construction and day-to-day running of the business has also given the team a real sense of ownership too.

“I can't imagine leaving that place. Just shy of painting [it], we were mopping, screwing and sticking stuff to the walls - the place feels like we built it with our own hands, so there's definitely a piece of us in there. It was fulfilling to make our own place and design it in the way we wanted. There's definitely a sense of accomplishment from managing to keep the place up and running.”

Thanks to the almost single-room layout of the shop, the team jokes that there’s little privacy at Flower Shop, which in turn, says Bill, has created an “intellectually stimulating” environment with ideas and conversation constantly bouncing between the close knit group.

Above: Bill Afonso, CFO/COO

Bringing in freelancers from Al and Mary Lou’s decades-worth of contacts doesn’t disrupt this intimate dynamic either, as they “try to keep the relationship at the forefront,” says Al. 

“It's not as transactional as it would be with a freelancer on a day rate, where they're here for two days, and then they're gone. We try to keep people on for the duration of the project and have them come into the Flower Shop. And people tend to want to come work with us and be around.”

This recently proved successful during a project for Topps with American football star Tom Brady, where they brought on freelancers from Al’s past decades in the business, who worked through from concept to finish. A rare process for smaller businesses on a tighter budget, he explains that he wants the independent creatives to feel just as invested in the work as them. “We have probably got 10 or a dozen people that we go back to all the time. So we haven't gone through 50 different freelancers… The hope is to grow and add to the numbers, but just do it without being in a rush.”

“That way, you trust the people you work with or have a prior relationship with them, and it’s allowed us to maintain continuity on projects,” adds Bill. “It develops a shorthand, so the work gets done better and quicker, and there's less need to micromanage people.”

Above: The Flower Shop

Some of these collaborators were Al’s mentors coming through - “classically, conceptually trained thinkers” who honed their craft at the likes of DDB and AMV in the ‘90s - now in their 50s and 60s but a “really sharp and conceptually strong” mix to combine with younger talent. 

“It's really nice being able to go: ‘This is what good looks like - what great thinking and real conceptual thought looks like’,” says Al. “They're still role models to me, so that's another thing we're trying to do in an industry that likes to phase people out once they get to a certain age. There's quite a lot of unbelievable talent now in that age [range] and obviously, with me being British and the industry being global, it's really easy for us to cherry pick people in London or Australia who I remember from 20 years ago who are really good and want to work.”

Back opposite the Flower Shop itself, the area’s proliferous street art seems to condense around one point - Freeman Alley, a notorious graffiti hotspot that tunnels colourfully towards the secluded Freemans Restaurant. Hidden away from the vibrant sights and sounds of Rivington Street, it’s clear to see why Taylor Swift celebrated her birthday at the establishment in December.

And just around the corner is the Bowery, a historically impoverished area of the city which plays home to the Bowery Mission, a homelessness and anti-marginalisation charity founded in 1879. Intent on becoming part of the local community from its ground-level storefront, Flower Shop is already opening channels to work with both the Bowery Mission and local police.

“There's a lot of people in trouble around here who go there for help, and we're trying to figure out ways that we can contribute and help them make it a little bit easier on people. It's a tough spot to be sometimes… You can't help but be involved. So we’re trying to do it on more of an official basis and trying to be additive to the area.”

Beside their charitable mindset, one of Flower Shop’s key differentiators is its creative and conceptual strength - creating work that stands out and resonates with truth and authenticity. Some of the agency’s early projects have also reflected Al’s fluency in sports advertising, thanks in part to his sporty childhood in Dundee, Scotland, and an eight-year stint working on Nike Football with Wieden + Kennedy. However, it’s not a specialism that they want to define their output. Instead, what matters to them are “brands that are adding meaningful things to the world”.

Al says, “When you're actually passionate about something, it becomes a lot more fulfilling to do that work and the work becomes better. So we're trying to find brands and partners that really fundamentally want to do great creative work. If they're a sports [brand], great! But if they're not, and we like their brand, we'll absolutely jump on with them.”

Being nimble with comparatively little overhead means that the team can focus on work they feel passionately about. “We want to be paid fairly for the value that we bring,” explains Bill, “but at the same time, it also lets us be a little bit more selective about what we say yes or no to. We can lean into that independence and that flexibility.”

Another philosophy that the agency is leaning into is a desire to make advertising that is also entertaining. Taking lead from the ads he saw while working at the Trevor Beattie-led TBWA\London - like PlayStation’s ‘Double Life’ and John Smith’s ‘No Nonsense’ campaigns - Al is sticking close to the “2000s ethos” of simple but interesting strategic thoughts, executed in wonderful ways.

“That has really shaped how I’ve done creative, and how we do creative here,” he says. “It’s traditional, in [the sense] that people who have been trained as conceptual thinkers articulate what a brand stands for in a way that you weren't expecting, but which absolutely makes sense to you.”

Two of his mentors, creative duo John & Chris - known for their ‘We’re the Superhumans’ work as heads of 4Creative and prior award-winning projects as creative directors at Fallon and TBWA\London - instilled this mindset in Al, which now informs the Flower Shop creative approach.

“When we first started, [John and Chris] said: ‘Don’t ever come with ideas or executions, just come with one line’. Come with a way of talking about the brand that you had never thought about before: Lloyds Bank - ‘If Maths Isn't Your Strong Point’... Madame Tussauds - ‘Stalkers Paradise’. Advertising gets so overcomplicated but if you can have that simplicity of looking at something in an insightful, different way, that will lead to great work.”

While Al says these ideas are rarer today - diluted by the need for quantity or mass appeal - he adds that he sees young talent with the necessary skills, and takes responsibility for encouraging that way of thinking. “It's always been a challenge to do that kind of work because it doesn't feel easy to buy, or normal, or like what everyone else is doing. So inherently, it's difficult - but it’s worth it.”

Among the names Flower Shop has been executing this with are sports apparel brand Fanatics, Lewis Hamilton’s non-alcoholic Tequila brand Almave, and Boston’s upcoming franchise in the National Women’s Soccer League. 

“Creating and positioning that pro team was great and really in our wheelhouse,” says Al. “Boston is such a hotbed for sport, so to have a women's soccer team was really a must. That’s a good product and something that we wanted to support and propel. Women's sport has been a big part of my career as well, so keeping the momentum going in that world has been interesting for us.”

Above: Flower Shop (and Aya the dog)

And this interesting work is where all of Flower Shop’s energy is going. “We don't have our own brand of Flower Shop perfume, we're not doing other stuff,” Al laughs. “So through 2024 and 2025, we're focusing squarely on what we're good at, which is creating good advertising for clients that want it… And it’s what we enjoy doing!”

Mary Lou adds that the small, agile team currently has the luxury to dedicate their time and passion to projects they truly believe in, and so this philosophy must, in turn, be protected  amidst any growth that comes about in the future.

“We like to spend a lot of time on the things that are important, thinking about something, sweating it, and really going through the rigour of coming up with work,” says Al. “It’s important and I hope it isn't getting lost or squeezed too much in the industry. We try to protect the time that we have to think about stuff, and that's a way to keep good conceptual thinking alive.”