Inspiring Futures - Lessons from the Worlds of Marketing and Advertising

In the latest Inspiring Futures podcast, I spoke with Dan Gardner, the co-founder of Code and Theory. A 22-year-old- digital-first agency that states its philosophy as   "Our intent is   to be unclassifiable in a cluttered agency landscape. We discussed the origins and evolutions of Code and Theory, how to think about technology correctly, the importance of discourse, what keeps him inspired,...

Ivan heads up Redscout and is the CEO of the consulting company. Founded over 20 years ago, Redscout focuses on "making change real," using strategists and designers to make this happen. Ivan has a strategy background and has been with Redscout since 2015. His client experience includes- Best Buy, Google, PepsiCo, and ADP.  Our conversation was wide-ranging, covering his career progressi...

Kyle is the Strategy Director of BBH Singapore, where he works on a roster of great brands, including; Heineken, Nike, and Riot Games.  The podcast discusses his background, including his time at BBDO in Germany and his award-winning work for the WWF (World Wildlife Fund).  We also talk about the importance of how work gets developed that's culturally resonant and is likely to capture attenti...

Way too many months back, I had the chance to speak to Evie and Tyler at the Escape Pod in Chicago. It was an excellent opportunity to talk to members of a strategy team at a small agency. Tyler runs the department and Evie is a brand strategist on the team. Since Evie came into the industry from academia, we had an interesting discussion about what she brought to the team from her learnings on pe...

Craig Mawdsley and Bridget Angear are Craig and Bridget - brand strategy consultants based in London. They started a couple of years after spending time as joint Planning heads at AMV BBDO, where they worked on a portfolio of impressive brands and picked up a trophy case full of awards. They were named top strategists by Campaign Magazine six years out of eight. This podcast is a follow-up to one...

The Inspiring Futures podcast has been on hiatus for the past few months. In that period, a few recordings made last year never made it out into the public airwaves, which is an absolute disgrace. One such recording was an interview I did with Sophie Ozouz, the co-founder of Kin.  Kin is a purpose-focused agency with offices in NY and Los Angeles. Sophie founded the agency with a former colleague...

Vasanth is a polymath- he's a creative director, but he's also an author, he has an engineering background is a graduate of computer engineering and started his career as a digital consultant.  Somehow he saw the light, transitioned to copywriting, and has held numerous jobs with JWT, Wunderman, Edelman, and Sapient-Razorfish.  Vasanth also spent time in the halls of one of the most resp...

A few weeks back I was fortunate to chat with Neel Williams - Group Creative Director at the Martin Agency.  Neel runs all things creative on the massive GEICO account.  I couldn't beat the brilliant intro Neel has on his website, so I decided it was simplest to just cut and paste it. "I am a copywriter by trade, Group Creative Director by title and gumbo-lover by birth. I graduated from...

Bonnie Wan has been working at Goodby since 1998.   In 2022, she was named Advertising Age/Creativity Chief Strategy Officer of the Year. She started her career at Weiss, Whitten, and Stagliano in NY before becoming Adam Morgan's first hire at TBWA Chiat Day LA followed by stints at FCB and Hal Riney before joining GSP to work with Jon Steel.  In the conversation, we talk about the shifts and...

This podcast episode features an interview with Stevie Archer- ECD and Kevin Skobac-Managing Director, Strategy- SS+K SS+K is part of the M&C Saatchi network and has been around for 30 years.  It has a history of working in the political arena - including working for Obama in 2008. That political experience translates into a philosophy they describe as "thinking politically and acting cre...

Kierstin De West is the Chief Marketing Officer of Alpha Foods. This podcast is the story of Kierstin's journey from ad agency strategist to brand marketer to running her consulting business and on to senior brand roles at Lululemon and Alpha Foods. In the episode, we talk about what she learned along the way,  what agency folks need to know about working client-side, why strategists make gre...

Nick Steel is the co-founder of the creative independent agency HarrimanSteel.  The shop has worked with the likes of Uber, Seedlip, Tom's, Nike, Girl Effect, FootLocker, Patagonia and more.  Nick founded the agency straight out of art school at 27 and was lucky enough to get Nike as his first client.  In our conversation, we talk about his approach to the business, the importance of agency c...

The latest episode of Inspiring Futures features an interview with Nikita Walia- the founder and CEO of Blank. Nikita studied at NYU and went straight to work as a "digital native" on the coalface of social media.  She's done stints at We are Social, Matte Projects,, King &Partners- before setting up her own agency.  Our conversation takes on the ambitious challenge of exploring...

The podcast episode features an interview with Thomas Papadopoulos who is the CEO and co-founder of the Paris-based innovation consultancy Possible Future. Thomas spent 16 years in the consultancy industry, first at Accenture, leading the Accenture Interactive Digital practice in France, then as a Partner in charge of Digital Transformation at Infosys and finally as Managing Partner at Weave, deve...

Wayne Chang is the General Manager of Saatchi Art. Wayne is an emerging artist himself but also has significant experience in the web and e-commerce space- starting with Newsweek and with stints at Photobucket and DogVacay.  Saatchi Art is the world's largest platform for emerging artists with 1.4 million artworks, from 94k artists, representing 110 countries.  In our conversation, we talk ab...

Thomas Kolster is a former ad agency copywriter who when the climate conference came to his hometown, Copenhagen- asked himself some serious questions and went off to investigate how advertising could do more good.  The result was the book "Goodadvertising" which was a bold attempt to change the role of advertising from just selling to being able to promote good. In 2020,  Thomas wrote a...

Lidiya is currently in Lviv and up until a week before the war began was working as a strategist at TBWA in Kyiv. In the conversation, we talk a little about her background and where her attention is focused right now- on the "Information War"- most advertising and marketing professionals who are not fighting are now working on the Information War and working together on specific assignm...

Proto is a consultancy that was founded just over a year ago by some of the leadership of R/GA.'s business transformation unit.  In the episode, I talk with Rachel Mercer- the Chief Experience Officer, and Mike Rigby- Chief Design Officer. The conversation covers their background and experience, the types of work that Proto is involved with, and the importance of clearly defining your own bra...

In a world where every marketeer is talking about purpose, it is interesting to find an agency that has been working in this domain for over a decade. In this episode, I talk with Rob Holzer- the founder and CEO of Matter Unlimited. Rob is something of a digital pioneer and was the co-founder of Syrup- a digital agency that worked with the likes of Puma and GE and got acquired by LBI. Matter Unlim...

Connor Moore and Paul Amitai are the Executive Creative Director and Executive Strategy Director of Listen. Listen is a sound agency that helps companies and brands create and build audio and sound strategies.  Connor designed the sound of  Tesla's Model 3  engine tone to a family of alerts and notifications for Uber's Drivers App.  He helped define Google’s audio design language for Goo...

Ben Dietz led commercial partnerships at VICE Media and is now a consultant for media and consumer brands. He publishes the [SIC] Weekly newsletter and is the co-host of the Culture Club Show on Clubhouse on Wednesday nights.  Ben has spent time advising brands on how to reach into unfamiliar and potentially risky spaces through his work with VICE and youth culture. In the podcast, we discuss his...

Neil Parker is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of co: collective Over a decade ago co: collective was born- founded by Neil, Rosemarie Ryan, and  Ty Montague.   Rosemarie and Ty had run the NY office of JWT and Neil had been the global strategy head of design firm Wolff Olins. co: collective's arrival on the scene caused something of a stir because it wasn't the typical start-u...

One of the best things strategy-wise to come out of the last couple of years is the 30-minute University of Planning which was the brainchild of Dr. Gordon Euchler.  The university does 2 things..1- Connects mentors to mentorees 2. Organizes talks/learning sessions. This platform has allowed strategists from all over the world to learn for mentors and for mentors to learn from the mentorees.  We a...

Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler are freelance strategists based in Melbourne, Australia who have created a consulting service to help clients construct better briefs.  The idea is fueled by an extensive research project that found up to 33% of marketing budgets are wasted from the inefficiencies created by bad briefs- Matt and Pieter-Paul are on a mission to change that. In our conversation...

Lindsay Stein is the new chief of social impact at Havas in NY. Havas has been making some big moves around social impact recently and Lindsay is freshly installed in the New York office with the charge to make a difference inside the agency and with clients. Lindsay's started her career in sports journalism but has a deep knowledge of the US marketing communication scene from her stints at P...