Inspiring Futures - Lessons from the Worlds of Marketing and Advertising

When Hyphenated was awarded Silver, West Coast in Ad Age's Small Agency of the Year Awards the publication wrote the following introduction. "When William Esparza and Kelli Robertson left their roles at R/GA in 2019 to establish their own creative agency, they chose the name Hyphenated to reflect the agency’s aim of bridging the gap between brands and the multicultural audiences whose sp...

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Jonathan Wise one of the co-founders of the non-profit Purpose Disruptors. Jonathan was once a strategist at JWT, but quit his job to study for an MBA in Sustainability. In the episode, we discuss his journey and transformation, what Purpose Disruptors is, and how it is trying to impact and create change in. behaviors, mindset, and bu...

The latest episode of Inspiring Futures features an interview with Dr. Grace Kite, the founder of Magic Numbers and Magic Works, an analytics-focused consultancy that helps companies and brands understand how they grow. In our conversation, we discussed the challenges and importance of being strategic when understanding the factors behind growth, the difficulty of brand-building for performance-fo...

The latest Inspiring Futures episode features an interview with Beth Bentley the co-founder of consultancy Tomorrowism.  Beth's experience includes-  Deputy Head of Strategy- Adam & Eve, London Executive Head of Strategy- at Wieden&Kennedy- London SVP Strategy Virtue at Vice.  She is also the author of a best-selling book, was the Chief Strategy Officer of Portas retail consultancy, a...

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Caroline Johnson- Co-Founder of The Business Model Company. Caroline worked at Grey but then worked at KPMG as a consultant. The Business Model Company advises agencies on how to evolve their business models to generate value for their clients and increase revenues and profitability for themselves.  She was called in to help with the...

Andy Nairn co-founded Lucky Generals- an ad agency with offices in London and New York.  Beyond running an agency, Andy has written a best-selling business book "Go Luck Yourself" and has just completed his first novel- "Trail of Blood" a murder mystery set 500 years ago on the border between England and Scotland.  Some quotes from our chat.  On Pitching  "Some agencies ar...

Maz  Karimian heads up strategy at ustwo an employee-owned product design company that brings emotional game-inspired thinking to product design—some key quotes from our conversation below.  About ustwo “Monument Valley is the game and the game series That was so successful that usTwo games was split off as a sort of a separate sister entity, still under the usTwoi umbrella. But yes, that's b...

Daniel Groh heads up brand at Satisfy Running. In this interview, we discuss the transformed state of the running category and Satisfy's place within it. How the brand leans into personal expression and appeals to those who want to express themselves beyond the traditional players and the traditional running silhouette. How it's leading the charge in sustainability, recycling, and repair...

The latest episode of Inspiring Futures features an interview with John Geletka John is the owner and founder of Geletka + - a small agency located in the West Loop of Chicago The agency started five years ago. John's an artist by training but has done several different jobs in his career including corporate marketing, but he's also an entrepreneur at heart. It was fascinating to talk to...

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast is an interview with Eliza Yvette Esquivel. Eliza has worked both on the agency and client side. She's had senior brand management roles at Mondelez and Microsoft and as a strategist and CSO at several different agencies, including Barbarian, Future Brand, DDB, JWT, Wieden and Kennedy Amsterdam, and TBWA. In our conversation, we discuss what she's lea...

Warren Berger is an author and journalist who has spent the last 25 years writing about the worlds of design, advertising and innovation. Back in the day he got a feature story about Weiden and Kennedy into the NYT Magazine and he wrote the book "Advertising Today" that was published by Phaidon,.  For the past 10 years, he's been focused on the world of questions and questioning- fr...

This episode features an interview with Gerard Crichlow, who heads up Global Strategy on the Unilever brands- Axe/Lynx at IPG. Gerard collaborates with several IPG entities worldwide to ensure the Axe/Lynx brands connect to their consumers and cultures.  Some quotes from Gerard from the episode. "And for me, if we're in the attention game, who does attention best, and that tends to be en...

This latest episode of Inspiring Futures features an interview with the CMO of Depop.  Depop is one of the most interesting brands in the fashion space since it's all about reselling and ultimately about transforming the way we shop for fashion.  Peter has a fascinating background with experience on the agency side with both Anomaly(where he worked on the Converse brand) and VCCP and client s...

In this episode, I talk with Tass Tsitsopoulos, the Global Strategy Director of McDonald's at Wieden + Kennedy. We discuss his early life in London, studying politics at LSE, his accidental journey into advertising thanks to Jeremy Bullmore, his life as an Account Guy at BBH, and his leap into planning. We also get to talk about his journey in the US with BBDO and McDonald's at Wieden +...

Last month, I sat down for a conversation with Ian Murray- the co-founder of Burst Your Bubble. Ian has no shortage of contrarian views on everything from media and the current vogues in marketing to what strategists need to be doing in their work. To give you a flavor of the conversation- here are some soundbites. On Media  "TV still produces the strongest signals in terms of what we call fi...

Jae Goodman is unique. He worked on Madison Avenue. He has a deep understanding of brands. He knows Hollywood, and he understands the power of culture and celebrity.  Jae has experienced these worlds throughout his career, which spanned the likes of Wieden and Kennedy, CAA, and the creation of his agency- Observatory, and now his consulting company, Superconnector Studios. In our conversation, we...

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Amy Daroukakis, a cultural strategist. Our conversation stretched far and wide from the creative emergence of crisis to the importance of curiosity as a lifestyle to get you out of your comfort zone. The idea is that Cultural Strategy is a more significant thing than understanding Youth Culture. The fact is the future is now and isn&a...

Peter Spear started his career at Tattoo in San Francisco, where he fell in love with qualitative research and has been a practitioner ever since. We discussed the importance of talking to people to learn the hows and whys that data can't explain. How, in recent times, talking to strangers has become a challenge, and how to overcome those challenges.   In short, this episode celebrates the ar...

Last December, I recorded a podcast with Keely Adler, who heads up Futures at Dentsu Creative.  This was before the agency's huge T-Mobile win, in which Keely played a huge part. In this conversation, we talked about how she sees the discipline of "Futures" (what it is and what it isn't) and its role in strategy and for clients. Keely is also on the core team of the RADAR group...

Back in November, I had a fascinating conversation with Laura Hutlfess, the co-founder of FlyteVu.  FlyteVu is an entertainment marketing agency based in Nashville.  Laura has a talent management background and worked for CAA before branching out independently.  In our conversation, we talked about her background, the type of work the agency does, the importance of agility and nimbleness, her pers...

A few weeks back, I got to talk to Neal Mann. Neal has had a fascinating career. Working in the literal frontlines of journalism, he got to experience the pressures and realities of getting stories out to the world before your competitors. He was an early advocate and power user of digital platforms like Twitter and understood the transformations happening to news and journalism. He spent time hel...

Joe Carter spent time working in independent ad agencies in the UK, landed a sales job at Contagious, became enamored with Colenso BBDO,  arranged to have lunch with the agency MD, brought a one-way ticket to Auckland,  got a job in new biz at Colenso and then went on to be a co-founder of a company that makes cast pans- The Ironclad Pan Company. In the podcast, I talk to Joe about his journey, wh...

The latest episode of the Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Katie Dreke.  Katie has spent time with the likes of 180, Wieden Kennedy, Droga5, and Nike (7 years), and three years ago, she embarked on her journey as a consultant, which was when we last spoke.   We talked about her biggest learnings over the three years- such as unpacking and understanding her skills and capabiliti...

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with George Prest. George started his career in the creative department of BBH and moved on to creative director roles at Lowe.  He was early to understand the power of digital transformation and was Global Executive Creative Director at R/GA and, most recently, a partner at the Brandtech Group. In the podcast, we discuss his career trajec...

The latest episode of Inspiring Futures features an interview with Sophie Ayles. Sophie is one of Australia's most experienced strategists.  She started her career in the Disruption group at TBWA Paris and has spent time at JWT, BBDO, co: collective, and M&C Saatchi (where she had several different roles, including Regional Chief Strategy Officer -APAC). In the episode, we discussed Sophi...