Inspiring Futures - Lessons from the Worlds of Marketing and Advertising

Charlotte is the CEO of The Talent Business in North America.   She has a background in advertising having worked in the client services side of a number of agencies including - TBWA, McCann, and JWT.  For the past eight years, Charlotte has worked for The Talent Business in Los Angeles in New York. In our conversation, we talk about the new energy around marketing talent and the desire for compan...

Cindy Judge is the President and CEO of the Boulder, Colorado-based- creative collective that works across the areas of research, strategy, design, and communication for its clients.  SRG has expertise and a reputation for its work in the food and beverage space having worked with many of the leading restaurant chains and CPG brands.  The focus of the conversation with Cindy focused on food- what...

Kristen Cavallo re-joined the Martin Agency as CEO 3 years ago.  The agency was in crisis and was in urgent need of rejuvenation.  She had spent 13 years at Martin in a variety of roles ranging from Planning Director to Head of Business Development but left in 2014 to join Mullen. It was Kristen's first CEO job and she leaned in on her experience as a strategist- applying brand planning skill...

This episode features an interview with John V Willshire.  John has been running his innovation consultancy- Smithery for the past nine years- after graduating in Economics- he trained as a market researcher, worked for Viacom Out of Home, and then took on various roles at PHD- including separately - in the disciplines of econometrics and innovation. Somewhat disillusioned with agency innovation o...

In this episode, I talk with Tim Maleeny who is the President and Chief Strategy Officer at Havas- NY. Tim has an interesting background which includes stints at Hal Riney when Hal was working there, Ogilvy, RGA, and Havas. In our conversation, we talk about how the discipline has evolved and is evolving, the importance of department and teamwork, and how to run an agency and win business during a...

Many people from adland might be thinking that now might be a good time to start their own shop. This episode features an interview with Meryl and Gaelan Draper who have been running their own shop- Quirk - for the past six years. They have built a niche for themselves in the world of video advertising with a focus on delivering performance- this focus has attracted them to a host of DTC clients-...

Zeus Jones was founded in 2007 by former employees of ad agency Fallon. They wanted to do things differently and do different things- help clients come up with new ideas that could help their business, but those things were more action-oriented than word-based. Fast forward to 2020 and the company has a new generation of leaders and in the podcast, I get to speak to the Creative and Strategy Leads...

Katie is currently the Senior Director, Global Brand Concept at Nike Women,  It is her 7th job at Nike in her 7 years at the company. In the episode, we talk about a lot of things from her unconventional route into strategy, to the changing consumer landscape and the importance of opening yourself up to new experiences. Katie is unique in the fact she has worked at 180 and Wieden and Kennedy and b...

Kelli Robertson and William Esparza are partners and co-founders of Hyphenated which describes itself as a clandestine operation bridging companies and communities. Kelli is a strategist and William the creative. They both have impressive and extensive backgrounds at shops like AKQA, RGA, Goodby, MAL and have worked on their fair share of amazing brands like- Nike, Beats, Activision etc. They met...

Ana was the first guest on the Inspiring Futures podcast and it was great to have her back on the show to talk about her new book- The Business of Aspiration. The book is all about a new way for marketers and strategists to think about the interaction and intersection of brands and consumers. How brand value is now found in social good and the power of niches which serve as distinct worlds and cul...

A few weeks ago Jeff was a guest on my podcast and we talked about his take on the agency landscape, through the lens of his role as a PR person and consultant to agencies.  At the end of the chat, Jeff mentioned to me that he also wrote books and had, in fact, written a couple.  Hence- the 2nd pod- where Jeff talks about the process of writing and we go into the weeds on how this stuff gets done-...

Rob Campbell is a planner who thrives on being in the thick of the creative process. When it comes to creative work he wants to enhance it, inspire it, and nurture it.  In the episode, Rob shares his philosophy on Strategy and some stories from his experiences which includes time spent at agencies HHCL, Wieden, and R/GA.  Rob started out as a session guitarist - so he knows the creative process fi...

Lucy Jameson is one the best UK planners of her generation and has featured on Campaign's list of top 10 planners multiple times. She started her career at one of the founding agencies of the account planning discipline- BMP- where she stayed rising through the ranks for 19 years. She was one of a handful of leaders hired by Grey to transform the London office and operation, a task she succee...

For the past 20 + years- Mark and Adam and the crew at Eat Big Fish have been helping brands to think like challengers, unlock the pirates inside and overcome constraints. They also happen to be the themes of the books that they have written about brands, internal cultures, and innovation. This is a consulting company that believes in doing the research to back up and build its thinking, framework...

Tracey Faux Pattani is the recently hired CEO of BSSP. For Tracey, it is a return to an agency she last worked in 15 years ago. This is also her first agency CEO job - she joined the agency from Digitas SF where she headed up client service. To overuse, the cliche- these are unprecedented times, and certainly if you are a new CEO you want to be able to meet everyone in person both client and agenc...

Ad agencies have lots of skills but they rarely use them for the benefit of those who really could use them outside of their paying clients. Over in the UK, Akil Benjamin worked with M&C Saatchi to create Saturday School a program that helped provide mentoring for Black-owned businesses. Blackbusiness.mcsaatchi.com   He achieved a lot of success with that program and is now scaling it up on hi...

John Dempsey is one of the founders of the digital shop Road Trip. John got to experience the contemporary world of brand marketing while working on the KFC team at Wieden and Kennedy in Portland. In the episode, we discuss his thinking behind setting up Road Trip, the worlds of digital and brand marketing, and what he learned from his experience on the KFC account at W&K.

Chas Edwards is one of the founders of Pop-Up Magazine. The idea of Pop-Up Magazine started as an experiment with friends to turn a physical magazine into a live experience. Word of mouth soon followed and Pop Up became something of a cultural phenom selling out venues like the Lincoln Center and rolling through the country on a national tour. In the episode, I talk to Chas about his career trajec...

Jeff Sweat runs his own ad agency PR and consulting shop (Sweat and Co) in Los Angeles. Having started his career as a tech journalist he then moved to Yahoo where he got the chance to interact with a number of ad agencies. He then went agency side and had stints leading new business efforts at 72 and Sunny and Deutsch in LA before setting up on his own. My conversation with Jeff involved asking a...

It has been 15 years since David Charles and I worked together at BSSP. David has since gone on to jobs at AKQA, 72 and Sunny, and opening the Los Angeles outpost for KesselsKramer. He started off in Brazil writing comic books before making his way into advertising with the dreams of becoming a filmmaker. At AKQA and KesselsKramer he got the chance to direct spots and hone his skills. This all was...

Michael Arterberry is the Executive Director of the Youth Voices Center. His work involves working with high schoolers to get them to think beyond race and skin color and to understand their fellow schoolmates as people.  In a wide-ranging conversation, we talk about his life experiences, the work he does and his observations on the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death...

Justin Small is the founder and mastermind behind FSC- Future Strategy Club. Justin is determined to reinvent the agency model by creating teams for clients made up of the best talent possible, FSC is not a no thrills remote network- it has an HQ, host parties, trains its members, and is even in the process of setting up a ventures arm. Justin wants agencies to be great again and FSC is his attemp...

Jay Chaney is a strategist and part of a crack team of Canadian advertising professionals who have gone and done something completely insane by launching an ad agency in the middle of the Covid 19 crisis.  Chaney has teamed up with Beverley Hammond, Todd Mackie, Carlos Moreno, and Denise Rosetto to create Broken Heart Love Affair Chaney is no stranger to challenges has been part of successful turn...

George Olver is the co-founder of Movidiam. Movidiam is all about changing how films get made.  It is basically a global network of skilled practitioners in the world of film production. The network allows production to be more efficient at a time when clients are short on both time and money. It also ensures a level of quality because the experience of individuals is fully transparent.  Think of...

Jen Patterson is now a mom and a life-coach after spending over 20 years as a strategist. She started her career at Wieden and spent time at Deutsch in LA and at Wunderman in Seattle.  In the episode, we talk about her career trajectory - growing up at Wieden and then moving to Deutsch. About agency cultures and her thoughts on the magic part of the culture that make Wieden, Wieden, and how differ...