15 to Watch (Agency): Kate Rickard

Account Supervisor, MS&L Worldwide Age: 28

As an account supervisor for MS&L’s New York consumer practice, Kate Rickard serves as the group’s digital guru, charged with delivering innovative digital and social media tactics across all of the firm’s consumer group clients. The craftiness and resulting success of a Rickard-led campaign for P&G’s Swiffer brand led to a New York Times article titled “Getting Bloggers to Pay Heed to a Floor Mop.” As the digital lead, Rickard developed and delivered a global intranet infrastructure to share best-in-class work.

What Do You Do Again?

“My biggest challenge is trying to explain to my friends and family exactly what I do for a living,” Rickard says.

Blogging Bonanza

“This past July, my team arranged for one of our clients to become the co-host of the SocialLuxe Lounge with six of our mom blogger ‘friendlies’ at the annual BlogHer conference,” she says. “We saw an opportunity to work with these female bloggers to produce an event that would pamper and celebrate the mom blogger community. They in turn helped us create a unique platform to create conversations about a newly redesigned product.”

Moving the Needle

“Seeing my client’s campaigns move the needle and make an impact is extremely rewarding. I also love that moment when you wake up in the morning and rush to the computer or magazine stand to find that media hit that you’ve worked so hard to get.” ■

December 7, 2009