I help brands find marketing focus through strategy, storytelling, and a distinct point of view.Over the last 17 years, I’ve partnered with global brands to turn complex challenges into clear, actionable brand and marketing strategies. My work has earned Cannes Lions, fueled growth, and helped brands show up with clarity and cultural relevance.Agencies: R/GA, Virtue, Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy, EveryFridayBrands: Airbnb, American Express, (RED), STA TravelRecent Work: Drafted a strategic response and creative brief for Dove↗ to a TikTok trend that won Gold at Cannes Lions for Creative Effectiveness and drove increased purchase intent and brand trust in the US and UK.Category Experience: Travel, CPG, Financial Services, Tech, Home, Spirits, Automotive, Non-Profit, Entertainment PartnershipsDeliverables: Brand Foundations, Brand Idea/Platform, Audience Insight, Culture & Category Analysis, Campaign Strategy & Briefs, Messaging Frameworks, Social & Content Strategy

Brand
*Unilever Step Zero↓
*Archive by SDG↓
*Stem & Root (Bayer)↓
*Visa Brand Trust (EMEA)↓

Campaign
*Harlequin 'Own the Room'↓
*Tequila Cazadores↓
*Apps for (RED)↓
*'Eat Pray Love' Partnership↓

Social & Content
*Dove #TurnYourBack↓
*World Traveler Internship↓
*Ecosystem Member
*You Can't Eat Money

Strategy & Analysis
*Airbnb Audience Analysis↓
*Dove AI Perspective↓
*a16z Community↓
*IKEA Family Membership↓
*Barclays Avios Rewards↓

Client: Airbnb
Agency: Direct Contract
Role: Brand Marketing Strategy LeadChallenge: Airbnb is a U.S.-based business that grew by focusing on one country. To grow in Europe, leadership needed to understand the nuances of Guest audiences across the diverse European markets the brand is active in.Strategy: Created one source of truth bringing together multiple sources of data to give marketing leadership real insight into the differences and similarities amongst European guests.Result: New insight brought efficiencies in advertising creation and media spend.

Client: Dove
Agency: Ogilvy
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: Dove is an iconic brand for its stance on real beauty. Does it need to shift in the age of artificial intelligence?Output: With deep research including talking with industry experts and stakeholders across WPP, I developed the first Ogilvy point of view for the brand on the potential impact of artificial intelligence on its brand strategy, marketing and advertising.Result: Deep insight and understanding of the artificial intelligence and brand landscape to inform future brand strategy and campaigns.

Client: Dove
Agency: Ogilvy
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: Dove's longstanding commitment to champion real beauty was challenged by a TikTok filter that made it hard to figure out what was actually real.Strategy: Counter the prevailing trend through grassroots influencers and TikTok beauty community users before bringing in celebrities.Result:The campaign saw an increase in purchase intent and brand trust in the U.S. and UK. It also picked up a Media Grand Prix and Gold in Creative Effectiveness at Cannes Lions.View the Case Study Video↗

Client: Unilever Sustainability
Agency: Ogilvy
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: Product innovation can only get global conglomerates so far to sustainability goals, how do we change public behavior?Approach: Create a brand to aggregate collective action across social media that helps people realize that the most important step happens before the first step.Strategy: Seed influencers around the world and across categories with tips for sustainable living hacks backed by Ogilvy Behavioral Science to develop content from.Result: On the path to reaching 1B people with tips and tricks to live more sustainably.View the Step Zero Website↗

Client: Visa EMEA
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: As the world's largest payment network, almost everyone has a Visa credit or debit card but nobody actually engages Visa directly. How can we get more people to trust Visa directly?Strategy: Recognizing that Visa is essentially a marketplace for transactions with multiple stakeholders, we built a new trust framework based on digital-first marketplace products like Airbnb.Result: Visa EMEA's CMO onboarded a new approach to trust across his brand's work.

Client: Andressen Horowitz
Agency: R/GA
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: How do you create a valuable first-of-its kind online/offline, invite-only community for everyone from tech founders to cultural creators?Strategy: Through stakeholder interviews and workshops with a16z partners and portfolio companies, we uncovered that importance of psychological safety. This informed the entire project from interaction design and platform to key messages and communication cadence.Result: Client made referrals for future work from its investment portfolio.

Client: IKEA (Ingka Group)
Agency: R/GA
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: How can we reimagine the IKEA Family membership program to create more value for the many people while feeling more IKEA?Approach: Meeting with the many people inside and outside of IKEA to map the current value system and understand what opportunities existed to enhance it and bring IKEA's brand to every interaction and offer.Strategy: Pursue interactions, benefits and rewards that create relationship value for IKEA and its customers, rather than just a transactional discount.Result: Heavily influenced roadmap for new sustainability and rewards programs.

Client: Sanderson Design Group
Agency: EveryFriday
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: How can we monetize the famous William Morris design archive without cannibalizing our existing portfolio of brands?Strategy: Our insight focused on how young urban renters doesn’t value vintage because of its origin, but its ability to create something unique in a modern context. We compressed time in this fashion to join the past and the present, recognizing the timelessness of good design. There is no start, middle or end, just a cycle of imagination, interpretation and creation.Result: New brand created (foundation, naming, visual identity) in a matter of weeks that launched at Selfridges in London.

Client: Sanderson Design Group
Agency: EveryFriday
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: Sanderson owned Harlqeuin was experiencing a notable sales decline and adding a direct to consumer channel.Strategy: As one of the boldest brands in the portfolio, we revamped Harlequin's positioning to speak to fashionable people who also want a fashionable home.Result: "Over time, Harlequin lost some of its magic. This creative campaign is boldly re-building the brand." - Nigel Hunt, CMO

Client: Barclays
Agency: EveryFriday
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: How does the first ever current account with travel awards in the UK work, what is it called and how do we bring it market in the middle of a global pandemic preventing travel?Strategy: By focusing on the people and emotions of travel, rather than the transaction of points for hotels and flights - from seeing places to seeing faces - we were able to make a detailed, transactional offering as human as possible from the rewards structure to the naming and identity.Result: Opened up new streams of work across the Barclays business to support marketing with brand architecture, brand refreshes and creative communications.

Client: Bayer
Agency: Oliver
Role: Strategy DirectorChallenge: Bayer created a new functional health supplement that used natural ingredients in combinations to address real human health challenges. But it is also a brand known for its chemical creations.Strategy: We created a brand (foundation, visual identity) that looks more at home in a natural food store than a pharmacy, focused on the audiences and lifestyles where the functional solutions would be most relevant.Result: The new brand generated enough excitement to get CVS on board as a launch partner with premium shelf space.

Client: Tequila Cazadores (Barcardi)
Agency: Virtue (Vice Media)
Role: Assoc. Strategy DirectorChallenge: How do you relaunch a product in a hot tequila category full of celebrity endorsers and owners?Strategy: Shine a light on the celebrities of Los Altos de Jalisco. With editorial video and images, we made the people and the place that make Tequila Cazadores what it is our celebrities with an integrated marketing strategy and plan including social media, out of home, experiential and online video.Result: Double digit sales growth over the first two years of the campaign.Watch a Campaign Film↗

Brand: (RED)
Role: Director of MarketingChallenge: (RED) was built on special edition physical products being purchased triggering a donation. How does it work with increasingly popular in-app purchases?Strategy: In partnership with Apple, we worked with 25 of the top app developers to create in-app purchases with 100% of the proceeds going to (RED). The key to marketing was to let the developers, who know their audience best, lead the marketing for their app and audience.Result: Tens of millions of dollars raised on World AIDS Day 2014.

Brand: STA Travel
Role: Marketing and Communications ManagerChallenge: The World Traveler Internship was just a fun trip giveaway and partner vendors wanted to see better results.Strategy: We stopped thinking about the World Traveler Internship like a giveaway and more like an entertainment platform. Using social media platforms like Foursquare and YouTube, alongside the emerging podcast format, we captured every step of the process from applications to the trip to turn a summer giveaway into a year-round content marketing program.Result: We saw an increase of 200% in related product sales and 41% in related content consumption, and MTV was interested in turning it into a television series for mtvU, it's on-campus network.

Brand: STA Travel
Role: Marketing and Communications ManagerChallenge: STA Travel was frequently contacted by brands and entertainment companies to offer a trip giveaway, but the brand was never able to capitalize on the partnership marketing opportunities.Strategy: Instead of just working with Sony Pictures as its giveaway partner, we work with them on Eat Pray Love on a multi-prong travel platform. This included custom-made travel packages inspired by the destinations in the film, integration of STA retail locations and travel experts in local promotions, and executions with the film's other partners including Borders and Lonely Planet.Result: An estimated 65x times spend return in marketing value and film-themed travel package sales.

I believe that to change the tide of the climate crisis, we must reconcile our relationship with the Earth and all of its inhabitants.In this spirit, I created the Ecosystem Member podcast to explore the relationships a range of people have with the more-than-human world and how they bring that to their life and work.Past guests include Vincent Stanley, the legendary director of philosophy at Patagonia, Ersin Han Ersin, of the art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast, and Lylianna Allala, Climate Justice Director at the City of Seattle.Listen On:
Apple Podcasts↗
Spotify↗
YouTube↗
Substack↗

Scientists and experts assign about 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions to our food system. With many people in the West eating three or more times a day, that's a lot of chances to choose a more environmentally responsible diet.On You Can't Eat Money, I interviewed food industry folks from award-winning and Michelin Star chefs such as Dan Barber, Sean Sherman and Douglas McMaster to food thought leaders like Ben Aguilar of The (Wendell) Berry Center and Melina Shannon-DiPietro of MAD, Rene Redzepi's culinary industry non-profit about the connection between nature, ourselves and our food system.Listen On:
Apple Podcasts↗
Spotify↗
YouTube↗

“Rick is not only a great strategist, he is a fundamentally good human. He is able to go from helping rebrand the Grizzly Bear, so we have a greater appreciation for the animal in the wild, through to helping IKEA unpick and remap what the future of membership looks like. He is a strong team leader and collaborator. I would bring him onto any project and know my colleagues and clients are in great hands.”
- Nicole Armstrong, ex-Executive Strategy Director at R/GA, Current Executive Strategy Director at Clemenger BBDO"The simplifier - if I have to give a persona to Rick it will be it. I believe a strategist should be here to get the noise and complexity of an organisation/brand and take the essence of it all to give the brand a clear path forward. While working together, Rick has consistently done it for global retailer (IKEA), Global FMCG brand (Unilever), Global QSR (McDonald's) and Highly connected VC (A16Z). And he is bringing every discipline along with him, and for me and the brands we partner with, a strong and indispensable strategic partner."
- Bertrand Morin, Client Partner at R/GA“Endorsing Rick. He's very good, and comfortable with big brands and clutch situations.”
- Tom Morton, Ex-R/GA Global Chief Strategy Officer

"I brought Rick on to lead the brand planning and campaign strategy for one of my biggest clients and he overdelivered in every aspect of his scope. His collaboration with our agency team, the clients many different stakeholders, and the IAT from day one was beyond what we had expected from him. Rick approaches everything with well-researched strategic insights, considers industry trends, and has expertise in culture that you can't find elsewhere."
- Matt Scapelliti, ex-Group Account Director at OLIVER, Current Freelance Executive Producer"Rick is an experienced strategist whose insights often draw from a deep understanding of nature, inspiring how he approaches challenges for some of the world’s biggest brands. He also excels in creating comprehensive strategies that are rooted in research and aligned with the ambition of the brand. Rick is not only a brilliant strategist but also a dedicated mentor and team player. His encouragement and support fostered a collaborative, healthy challenger-mentality environment. Rick's blend of systems thinking, nature-inspired thinking, and mentorship made a significant impact on our work at R/GA."
- Yuliana Safari, Principal at Ipsos Strategy3, ex-Associate Director at R/GA

Cannes Lions Live 2020At the start of the COVID-19 lockdown, one of my mentors introduced me to the idea of biomimicry.While I came across many resources that applied biomimicry to design and materials, there was nothing about more general business and cultural strategy - so I created something.Along with an amazing group including a creative director, artist and a leader in the design futures space, we created a panel for Cannes Lions Live and shared the wonders of nature and how it can inform our creative practices.Watch on LoveTheWork.com↗

Assignment PhotographerBefore moving to London in 2020, I had a chance to join my wife on a research trip to Côte d'Ivoire as a photographer.In addition to taking portraits of the weavers as the collective my wife was working with, I got a chance to snap these artists in action.A few of the photos I took were then used in the gift shop of The Metropolitan Museum of Art to accompany a collection of textiles from the weavers created in conjunction with a related exhibition.