Real Famous

This is a conversation with Seth Gaffney. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Preacher, the agency that's "Spreading the Good Word" as they say. They've won Small Agency of the Year from Ad Age and support clients like Coca-Cola, the Container Store, ESPN, Sports Clips, and Foot Locker. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with returning guest Anselmo Ramos, the Co-Founder and Creative Chairman at Gut. In 2023, they became Adweek's Breakthrough Agency of the Year, and killed it at Cannes with wins for Independent Network of the Year and Agency of the Year for the Buenos Aires office among 35 Lions. They closed 2023 with a surprising sale to tech giant Globant. Enjoy!

Welcome Bonne Wan. Bonnie worked with some of the most creative agencies in the world including Chiat, Hal Riney, and FCB. She is now a Partner and Head of Brand Strategy for Goodby Silverstein, and was Chief Strategy Officer of the Year in 2022 for Ad Age. On January 16th, she officially became an author with her new book, The Life Brief, A Playbook for No-Regrets Living. Enjoy!

Clay Parker Jones returns to an all new Real Famous. In his past life, he was Managing Director at Undercurrent, Co-Founder at August, and Executive Director of Organization Design at R/GA. He is now Managing Partner and Chief Strategy Officer for one of Fast Company's most innovative companies of 2023, Black Glass. Show notes redacted.

Real Famous returns with a conversation with Catherine Heath. She recently left her role as the Head of Brand for Instagram. She is now on the board of the innovation consultancy Spikes and the Museum of Modern Art while running her own global consultancy called Once Upon a Time Brands.

This is a conversation with Emily Heyward. Emily is the co-founder and Chief Brand Officer at Red Antler. They have developed some of the biggest startup success stories on the planet, often working with founders before product launch. Their clients have included Allbirds, Keeps, Casper, Away, Burrow, and Chime. They've also worked with more established brands like Clear, Betterment, Policygenius, Birchbox, Foursquare, Zillow, Google, HBO, GE, Square, and more. Emily just launched her new book called Obsessed - Building a Brand People Love from Day One. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Icaro Doria. Over his career, he's been the Chief Creative Officer of Arnold and DDB. He was also the founding partner and CCO of Wieden and Kennedy in São Paulo, an agency he built from 2 to over 200 people. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with John McNeil, the founder and CEO of John McNeil Studio. John held creative leadership roles at Hill Holiday and Ogilvy before becoming the Executive Creative Director at McCann. John McNeil Studio has worked with brands like Nest, Uber, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Aetna, and more. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Rob Schwartz, the CEO of TBWA\CHIAT\DAY New York. Rob has been with the company for more than 20 years, including roles as Global Creative President and Chief Creative Officer. He's led work for some of the world's most well-known brands including Nissan, McDonald's, Pepsi, and VISA. He is also the host of the Disruptor Series podcast. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Jonathan Schoenberg, the ECD and Owner of TDA Boulder. TDA was just named 2019 Small Agency of the Year by Ad Age. Their clients include Patagonia, Justin's, Daiya, Hormel and more. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Dianne Wilkins, the CEO of Critical Mass. Di has been with the company since 1998 when she left her previous career behind to take on the global Saab account for the then young agency. She's since helped grow the business from 25 people to over 1,000 people in 12 offices all over the world. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Anselmo Ramos. He is the Chief Creative Officer of global agency GUT, which he co-founded just over a year ago, He is also the co-founder of DAVID, one of the buzziest agencies in the world, and was the Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Sao Paulo before that. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Eric Yang, the Founder and Editor in Chief of Gear Patrol. What started off as a hobby turned into a career as Eric built his blog into a multi-channel publishing business with more than 4 million readers per month. Last year, they took on a significant investment from Hearst magazines and are now building their own in-house branded content studio. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Heather LeFevre. She is a strategist and the author of the fantastic Brain Surfing the top strategy minds in the world. She has held senior strategy roles at BBDO, Mullen, The Martin Agency, CPB, Tribal DDB, Strawberry Frog. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Scott Trattner. Most recently, he was the VP and Executive Creative Director at Facebook. Before that, he spent years working at the Media Arts Labs for Apple, eventually becoming their ECD as well. Scott is behind some of the most well-known campaigns in Apple's history, including Mac vs. PC. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Jon Steel. He is one of the most well-known and respected strategists in the history of advertising. He started his career at BMP, which is one of the agencies that pioneered the concept of account planning. He became the first head of planning for Goodby back when they were 30 people and eventually took on the role of partner and Vice Chairman. He spent the rest of his career with WPP as Global Planning Director. He also led the WPP Fellowship, an elite global graduate recruitment and training program that was designed to create future leaders for the company. In 1998, he wrote one of the bibles of account planning, Truth, Lies and Advertising, and he followed up with Perfect Pitch, the art of selling ideas and winning new business, in 2006. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Jayanta Jenkins. He's held leadership roles including Global Executive Creative Director at Twitter, Global Creative Director at Beats by Dre, and Global Creative Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day. He started his career at Martin and then worked on the Nike business at Weiden & Kennedy. In 2016, he co-founded Saturday Morning, an organization that's bringing awareness to racial bias and injustice. He recently became the Global Executive Creative Director and Head of Brand for HP. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Natalie Lam. Most recently, she was Executive Creative Director at Google. Before that, she was the ECD at Razorfish, McAnn, OgilvyOne Asia, and a Creative Director on the Nike account at RGA. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Tiffany Rolfe. Tiffany is the EVP, US Chief Creative Officer at RGA. Before that, she was a partner and Chief Creative Officer at Co:Collective and spent 10 years with Crispin Porter Bogusky, eventually becoming a VP and Executive Creative Director. She's won just about every major award in the business including Best of Show at One Show, a Grand Clio, and the Grand Prix and Titanium Lion at Cannes. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Dave Burg. He is a co-founder of Shepherd, a strategic consultancy based in Austin, TX. Prior to launching his own agency, he held strategic leadership roles with RGA, CPB, Roundhouse and WK. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with the Bud Caddell, the founder of NOBL. Bud was the SVP of Invention and Digital Strategy Director at Deutsch and the West Coast founder of Undercurrent. In 2014, he launched NOBL. They are a new style of organizational consultancy operating in LA, NY, London, and Vancouver. They just launched Workhub, which they call the Github for work. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Alex Bogusky, Adweek's Creative Director of the Decade and Chief Creative Engineer at Crispin, Porter, Bogusky. Alex was employee 16 at Crispin Porter, a company he and his partners would transform into one of the most well-known and influential shops in the world. He left advertising in 2010 to work with startups like Lyft and non-profits like Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. Last year, he came back to CPB to reimagine what a modern agency can be. Also, a special thanks to the amazing folks at Coupe Studios in Boulder for hosting our conversation. Enjoy!

On this season finale of Real Famous, we have a conversation with Rosie Yakob, Faris Yakob, and Gareth Kay. Rosie was a Senior Social Strategist at Cake, led social strategy at Saatchi NY, and was also a Senior Strategist at 360i. Faris was the Chief Innovation Officer at MDC Partners, the EVP, Chief Technology Strategist at McCann, and is the author of Paid Attention. Together, they are the brains behind the consultancy Genius Steals. Gareth was the head of planning at Modernista!, the Chief Strategy Officer of Goodby, and the founding partner of Zeus Jones SF. He is now a co-founder of Chapter SF. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Chris Konya. Chris is the Co-head of NY for the Innovation and Brand Design studio Sylvain Labs. Chris started her career in the ad business at Cole & Weber and KBS+P before holding innovation roles with What If Innovation Partners and the Gild. Sylvain Labs has done a huge array of work for clients like Google, Spotify, Nike, Airbnb, Samsung, Patagonia, and many others. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Ben Jones, Global Creative Director and founder of Unskippable Labs at Google. Before joining Google, he was the EVP, Group Creative Director at Hill Holliday, SVP, Creative Director at Digitas and a Creative Director at Agency.com. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Justine Bloome, the Chief Strategy Officer at Vaynermedia. Over her career, she's spent time in publishing and the entertainment business, cut her teeth on strategy at Jack Morton, owned her own distributed agency called the Village Agency, and was the EVP, Head of Strategy and Innovation at Carat USA. Vaynermedia is one of the fastest growing agencies on the planet with close to 1,000 employees after less than 10 years of business. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Andrea Ring. Andrea is the Chief Strategy Officer at Big Spaceship. They were MediaPost's agency of the year in 2017 and their clients include YouTube, Starbucks, JetBlue, Google, Converse and many more. Before that, she spent ten years building the strategy team at R/GA, ultimately becoming their head of planning and experience strategy. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Thas Naseemuddeen. She is a Partner, Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Director at Omelet. Before that, she was a VP, Group Strategy Director at Deutsch, a Senior Strategist at BBH LA, a Senior Strategic Planner at Team One and a Planner at Chiat. Omelet is an independent LA creative boutique with clients including Princess Cruises, AT&T, Walmart, Pokemon, Microsoft, Whole Foods and more. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Rachel Mercer. She is the Executive Strategy Director at R/GA. Prior to that, she was the SVP, Head of Digital Strategy & Invention for Deutsch, a Strategy & Innovation Director at The Upside, a Senior Strategist at Made by Many, and a UX designer at Crispin. Rachel has been named one of Forbes 30 Under 30, Business Insider's Most Creative People in Advertising and one of The Drum's 50 women disrupting the status quo. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with David Polinchock. David is a pioneer in VR and the founder of the Experiential Advertising Group. Previously, he was the director of PWC's experience lab, the Director of Marketing for AT&T Big Data, the Director of AT&T's Adworks Lab, and the founder and chief experience officer of the Brand Experience Lab, which was behind AudienceGames. Brandweek called it one of the best marketing ideas in the world. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Tosh Hall. He is the Global Executive Creative Director at Jones Knowles Ritchie. They are a brand design agency with offices in London, New York, Singapore and Shanghai and clients including Budweiser, Domino's, Kelloggs and many more. Tosh started his career as a designer at Revlon before leading teams at Landor, his own agency, and JKR. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Catherine Heath. She has been a strategist at M&C Saatchi and Y&R, Global Creative Planning Director on Red Bull for Kastner & Partners, SVP and Group Planning Director on Microsoft for McCann, Global Chief Strategy Officer for Modernista!, Worldwide Group Planning Director on Visa for Chiat, Executive Strategy Director for M&C Saatchi, Head of Strategy, West Coast for Huge, and EVP, Head of Strategic Planning for Edelman. She is now running her own global consultancy called Once Upon a Time Brands. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Grant Owens, the Chief Strategy Officer at Critical Mass. They are a global experience design company with clients like GoDaddy, Rolex, AT&T, Nike, Jack Daniels, United and many more. Prior to that, he spent more than 10 years at Razorfish leading digital strategy for clients like Spotify, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, and Viacom. He is also an adjunct professor at NYU. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Jason Prohaska, the Managing Director of MediaMonks NY, which is the first international office outside of Europe for the global creative production studio. Their clients include Air Force, Ally bank, Google, IBM, and Snapchat among others. Prior to that, Jason was a Partner and the Managing Director of Big Spaceship. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Tom Goodwin, the EVP and Head of innovation at Zenith. Over his career, he's held roles at GSK, TBWA, Lowe, Huge, the IPG Media Lab and Havas. He is now charged with leading content and innovation initiatives at one of the world's largest media agencies. His new book, Digital Darwinism, is out now and you can find him at tomfgoodwin.com. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Virginia Wang, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at TBD, She has held strategy and insights roles at DDB NY, Goodby, MTV, EA, and Ideo. TBD is part of a new breed of creative shops that are re-thinking the value that an agency can deliver. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Mike Monello. Mike is one of the forefathers of Transmedia storytelling. He started his career in the film business and was one of the creators of the Blair Witch Project. In 2006, he founded Campfire, which has launched some of the biggest immersive storytelling projects ever created. They've worked with brands like HBO, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, FX, Cinemax, National Geographic, Verizon, Audi, and many more. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Noah Brier, co-founder of Percolate. Noah was a writer at American Demographics and Renegade Marketing. He became a strategist with Naked Communications and then built the strategy department at the Barbarian Group. He is also the founder of Likemind and Brand Tags. Percolate launched in 2010 and is now one of the largest content marketing platforms in the world. You can find Noah at NoahBrier.com. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Rory Sutherland. Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, the founder of their behavioral psychology arm, Ogilvy Change, a former President of the IPA and famed TED speaker with talks including Life Lessons of an Ad Man and Sweat the Small Stuff. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with a great in our industry, Paul Feldwick. He started his career at BMP in 1974 and rose up the ranks to become the Worldwide Brand Planning Director for DDB. He also founded DDB University and wrote the fantastic book, Anatomy of a Humbug, How to think differently about advertising. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with David Armano, the Global Strategy Director of Edelman. David was part of the founding team at the Dachis Group, the VP of Experience Design at Critical Mass, a VP and ACD at Digitas, and a Senior Creative Director at Agency.com. He's spent his career leading multidisciplinary teams for clients like HP, Adidas, Hilton, AllState, P&G, Lego, and many others. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Kara Goldin, the founder of Hint Water. Kara was a technology executive at AOL before she got into the beverage business. She was named one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs and Forbes' 40 Women to Watch Over 40. The Huffington Post also called her one of six disruptors in business alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. You can find Hint in Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, or at any Google office. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Mark Earls, an author and brand pioneer. Mark was the Head of Planning at Bates Dorland and St. Luke's Communications before becoming the Executive Planning Director and the Chair of the Global Planning Council at Ogilvy. He is also the author of Welcome to the Creative Age, Brand New Brand Thinking, Herd, and Copy Copy Copy. He is also the founder of the Herd Consultancy. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Rob Campbell, the Chief Strategy Officer and a Partner at Deutsch. Rob founded two agencies, was the regional head of planning at Y&R Asia, and the head of strategy at Wieden & Kennedy in Shanghai, among other roles. He also writes one of the most popular planning blogs on the web, Musings of an Opinionated Sod. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Elise Mitchell, the Founder and CEO of Mitchell Communications, the CEO of the Dentsu Aegis PR network, and the President of the International Communications Consultancy Organization which represents 2,500 public relations firms in 55 countries. Elise built one of the largest PR firms in the US with clients including Walmart, Hilton, P&G, Kraft, Sony, Canon, and more. She is also the author of Leading Through the Turn. Enjoy!

The is a conversation with Bill Macaitis, a true technology luminary. Most recently, he was a board member and CMO of Slack. Before that, he was the CMO of Zendesk, the head of marketing at Salesforce, and the head of Online Marketing for Fox Interactive Media with responsibility for IGN, Rotten Tomatoes, Fox Sports, Askmen and Myspace during its heyday. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with a true giant of our industry, Chris Riley. He was the first strategist hired at Wieden and Kennedy in 1991 and was a part of the leadership team that grew the company from a small shop in Portland to the global creative agency it is today. He was the head of strategic planning for Apple as it launched the Mac vs. PC campaign, apple.com, the iPad, and the iPhone. Now, he leads Studioriley, which works with some of the worlds most innovative companies to bring them insight into the world. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Richard Huntington. Richard is the Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi London. Before that, he held strategic leadership roles at AMVBBDO and HHCL, and worked with clients like Visa, Asda, Sky, HSBC, T-Mobile, and the Labour Party, He is also one of the godfather's of the internet of planning and writes at Adliterate.com. Enjoy!

This is a conversation with Stefan Sagmeister. Stefan is the founder of the New York design studio Sagmeister & Walsh. He has collaborated with the likes of the Talking Heads, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, David Byrne and Jay-Z on their album covers, winning 2 Grammy Awards along the way. In 2008, he released the fantastic book Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far. He created the Happy Show, an exhibition that's gained over 350,000 visitors globally. And now, he launched his directorial debut, The Happy Film. Wired magazine called it "A highly entertaining confessional that is as much a reality show as experimental art piece." You can download it on iTunes today. Enjoy!

Welcome to the Season 2 Finale! This is a conversation the co-founder of Zeus Jones, Adrian Ho. Adrian started his career in the mailroom at Lord, Denstu & Partners before working his way into planning. Since then, he's been a Planner at JWT, a Planning Director at Goodby and the Director of Account Planning at Fallon. In 2007, he and his partners launched Zeus Jones, part of a new breed of creative companies that are looking beyond advertising for growth. Their clients include General Mills, Nestle and 3M. Enjoy!