The story
Two guys, a blog, and an idea whose time had come
Alan Beard and Alec McNayr met at Pepperdine University in 1997 and worked together at the dot-com era market research firm Jupiter Media Metrix in the early 2000s.
By 2010, McBeard did only one thing: social media. No websites, no billboards, no TV spots, no banner ads.
Their first entertainment client (20th Century Fox) tasked McBeard with attracting 100,000 Facebook followers for their parody movie Vampires Suck. In ten weeks, they gathered over 800,000.
The rise of social media marketing was inevitable. More campaigns and clients followed, and the McBeard team doubled year-over-year. Team members worked from home offices, many in their first or second jobs, and ended up running social campaigns for nearly every studio and TV network in Hollywood. By 2015, McBeard had expanded to 150 employees and freelancers.
On May 4, 2015, Fullscreen announced that it was acquiring McBeard. The team found out five days earlier, at a day-long offsite at the Sportsman's Lodge in Los Angeles. People flew in from all over the country, so that everyone was in the room.
In 2017, Alec and Alan retired the McBeard brand, uniting under a singular company name: Fullscreen. Alan moved on from Fullscreen in 2018, and Alec the following year.
The Fullscreen brand services group (dubbed Brandworks: influencer activations, social, custom content, community management, platform services, and media) continued until 2021, when eventual acquirer AT&T/WarnerMedia shut down all Fullscreen operations.
Today, McBeard alumni span the globe, in positions of leadership, creativity, marketing, and entrepreneurship. They are the real McBeard legacy.
Focus
Social was the only thing we did, back when most agencies handed it to the intern.
Trust
No office, no clock-watching. Trusted with little, trusted with much.
A chance
Almost nobody had worked at an agency before. That was the advantage.
Service
Leadership works for the team. We turned the pyramid upside down.
- 2008Historical Tweets launches. First client: Nokia
- 2010McBeard goes all-in on social. First film campaign: Vampires Suck
- 2015Acquired by Fullscreen. Signed via Snapchat.
- 2017The McBeard name is retired to support Fullscreen unity.
