ignition opened its doors in a former cow barn in Vermont in 1997. Started by event-based marketing pioneers and philanthropists Dill and Susan Driscoll with a simple mission to make a positive difference in people’s lives.

ignition reel 2010 from ignition-inc on Vimeo.

Since then we’ve moved our HQ to Atlanta, lived and worked in Beijing, Vancouver, Johannesburg, London, New York, LA, Torino, Essen and in countless communities around the world. We’ve loved and learned from everyone we’ve worked with. We’ve put millions of human hours into refining and defining our trade. And we’ve put into practice every day our ethos—that a great attitude is infectious, hard work is essential and being our authentic selves will result in outstanding services that draw consumers, customers, employees and stakeholders closer to brands.

In 2009, Mikey and Cindy-Ann (CA) Hersom joined the ownership team and renewed ignition’s focus on leading-edge global activations and sustainability.

We’ve logged dozens of “firsts” that now set the industry standard.

We are the first experience-based marketing agency to:

• Concurrently activate global sponsorship programs for two of the world’s biggest sporting icons—bringing the FIFA World Cup™ Trophy and the Olympic Flame to hundreds of thousands people around the world creating a once in a lifetime memory. We’ve done this for The Coca-Cola Company simultaneously…twice.
• Plan and lead a team of 22 runners in a 24/7 run around the world to raise mass awareness and funds for the water crisis with the Blue Planet Run.
• Drive sponsorship activations for eight concerts held simultaneously—on seven different continents—with Live Earth.
• Fully integrate environmental sustainability throughout our work. We designed and apply the proprietary ignition Sustainability Execution Scorecard (iSES), based on the internationally recognized BS 8901™, to minimize an event’s impact to the environment while maximizing its social returns.
• Manage an ambitious locally activated, around-the-world social media campaign that spread happiness online. One year and 206 countries/territories later, Coca-Cola’s Expedition 206 shared what made people happy through video diaries, blog posts, tweets and shared brand experiences.