Ian Mackenzie, formerly global creative AI lead for McCann WorldGroup, and CCO and co-founder of Performance Art and FCB/SIX, has teamed up with former CMO and brand president, Ryan Bullock, to launch brand performance agency, Memory, an agency that blends creativity, technology, data and AI to drive brand growth.
Mackenzie is a multi-awarded creative leader known for his innovative work in the creative data space. Ryan Bullock is a seasoned marketing executive with past roles as a client-side CMO and agency president.
Memory is built on the belief that creativity, technology, data, and AI should work together to drive meaningful business growth. From the top of the funnel to the bottom, the agency ensures that creative work is not only engaging but also engineered for measurable outcomes. The goal is to create a world-class and technologically innovative creative product achieved through strong collaboration and business partnership.
The agency’s name was chosen for its triad of meanings – its emotional connection to nostalgia and human recall, its technical relevance to data storage and AI-driven intelligence, and its central role in advertising.
“Memory is inherently human, tied to the way we connect with what matters,” stated Ian Mackenzie. “But it’s also deeply technical – the foundation of data storage and retrieval – and the structures that enable advertising to drive recall and influence consumer choice.
“The twin growth drivers of innovation and creativity aren’t evenly distributed across the customer journeyUpper-funnel work often prioritises storytelling at the expense of measurable gains in the short term, while lower-funnel work tends to sacrifice creative ambition to maximise performance metrics, leading to compromise and missed opportunity at both ends.”
The agency is founded on a unique set of industry-tested principles – a commitment to cross-functional creativity over traditional creative-led agency approaches, a belief that marketing innovation should be accessible to all clients at all stages of their technological maturity, and aclient-centred ethos that seeks to move beyond service provision to become a business partnership.
Ryan Bullock brings a dual perspective shaped by leadership roles on both the client and agency sides. He led marketing at The Keg, one of Canada’s most recognised restaurant brands, where he helped drive over 25% in sales growth. He also held senior leadership positions at Recipe Unlimited, The Keg’s parent company, where he managed complex marketing portfolios at scale.
Bullock built his career with a collaborative style and ability to build long-term partnerships and he brings a strategic mindset to the agency’s client relationships and growth strategy. His client experience and tenure as partner and president at the independent agency, Juliet, have given him a deep understanding of the pressures enterprise marketers face and the realities of growing brands in competitive categories. Bullock helps bridge client priorities with agency delivery. For smaller and mid-sized brands, he provides executive-level brand expertise from both sides of the table, positioning Memory as an embedded extension of the client’s team and offering strategic guidance across PR, social, advertising, loyalty, and beyond.
“Agency and client businesses often operate with different priorities. New business pitches, award circuits, talent churn, shifting technologies, and revenue pressure can dominate the agency side. But none of that matters if we lose sight of what matters most: delivering real value and results for our client partners,” Bullock commented. “At Memory, I’m committed to building a business culture that balances creativity with true client centricity—two elements that should always work in tandem, never in conflict.”
Mackenzie has a consistent record of delivering big, bold, social, data and tech-enabled ideas for clients. In 2013, he co-created the influential Our Food. Your Questions radical transparency platform for McDonald’s. Since then, he has led a string of influential campaigns, including the dynamic data visualisation, Destination Pride for PFLAG, – a globally recognised early pillar in creative data; Go Back To Africa, Black Elevation Map and See You There for Black & Abroad; e-comm platform Publicly Traded for LifeStyles Healthcare; generative AI B2B campaign The Greatest Guide for Grupo Bimbo; AI-driven Hofmeister Kink for BMW; and, most recently, Save Big for WWF. He has won Grand Prix-level recognition at every major global award show, including a Grand Prix in Creative Data at Cannes, a Black Pencil at D&AD, Best of the Best at One Show, and a Global Grand Effie.
