Rachel is global head of gaming at We Are Social, leading a team of 50 experts across the agency’s 19 offices. She has worked with brands like Red Bull and McLaren, as well as developers including Blizzard and Jagex. She has more than 10 years of experience spanning production, strategy, marketing, branding, monetization, partnerships, business development, esports tournament ops and game design.

We spent two minutes with Rachel to learn more about her background, her creative inspirations and recent work she’s admired.

Rachel, tell us …

Where you grew up, and where you live now.

I grew up in the small town of Spring Hill, Fla., just north of Tampa. I moved to the U.K. in 2017, and I’m living by the seaside in Brighton these days. It’s like Florida with its perpetual rain, but a bit more gray and occasionally snowy. 

How you first realized you were creative.

When I was very young, I could pick up anything art-related and excel at it as though I’d been doing it for years. Music and drawing came naturally. I could hear or look at something once and figure it out.

A person you idolized creatively early on.

I idolized John Williams and his incredible film scores. Having the ability to convey or evoke a specific emotion without words is a powerful tool. I wanted to understand how to harness this power to tell better stories, not just through music, but through as art, writing and marketing.

A moment from high school or college that changed your life.

In college, over a two-month period, everything that could go wrong did. I nearly died, became homeless and was diagnosed with cancer. I needed to empower myself, not rely on others to get me where I wanted to be. That perseverance and determination has gotten me where I am today. 

A visual artist or band/musician you admire.

I love John Williams, Russell Brower and Joe Hisaishi. Their ability to make you feel the music and understand it on a deep level is incredible. In visual mediums, I love Paul Kwon and Yann Blomquist’s conceptual art.

A book, movie, TV show or podcast you recently found inspiring.

I recently read the first two books of The Kingkiller Chronicle Series by Patrick Rothfuss. It’s a story about a boy named Kvothe who had to overcome adversity to become an arcanist and “master namer.” It’s a story I can relate to, as my own life had similar tribulations.

One of your favorite creative projects you’ve ever worked on. 

The “Drive to Win” series we created at Logitech G. Through our partnership with Playseat, we created Logitech G Edition racing seats. We featured people from all walks of life, from everyday people to professional racing drivers, and showed how they used our products to fuel their drive to win. 

A recent project you’re proud of. 

Call of Duty: Soap Codes with Activision/Blizzard. We worked with the client to create an in-game soap item based on one of the beloved characters, John “Soap” MacTavish. Gamers could win this item by commenting on socials with the soap emoji.

Someone else’s work that inspired you years ago. 

People buy with emotion and justify it with logic. If a piece can make me feel for the character or world I’m about to jump into, I’ll almost always pick up that game or product. A great example is the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic trailer by Blizzard Entertainment.

Someone else’s work you admired lately. 

“Doritos: Cancel the Crunch.” The key was taking a player pain point and making Doritos the champion in overcoming that obstacle. All gamers know the pain of listening to friends chow down on snacks in the middle of a match. So, the noise cancellation technology was a genius way to get players to interact with the brand, even if they weren’t purchasing the product.

Your main strength as a creative person.

I was told that being a generalist and moving around from place to place would be the death of my career. Those moves, however, have allowed me to gain first-hand experience in a variety of roles and understand how each piece contributes to the greater puzzle from a multitude of perspectives.

Your biggest weakness.

The ability to let go and let others do things their way. I’ve been in the games industry for so long, I have gained a strong understanding of what works and what doesn’t. So, when a member of my team wants to try something out of the ordinary, it can be difficult to let them do it their way. But I’ve learned that if you give people the chance to impress you, they will deliver. 

A mentor that helped you navigate the industry.

Joeyray Hall has helped shape me into the person I am today. He told me that to be a great leader, I would need to understand how each person’s contribution helps create a great product. I shaped my whole career around this guiding principle.

How you’re paying it forward with the next generation of creatives.

The best way to pay it forward as a leader is to be empathetic, kind and create a positive environment that encourages growth. I want to set a good example by prioritizing my team’s mental health and progress as individuals. I want my team to be happy, motivated to push the boundaries of the status quo and to succeed in their own right.

What you’d be doing if you weren’t in advertising.

I’d likely be working for a game company leading marketing or esports.Those have always been my two greatest loves. Bonus points if it was motorsports marketing within games, as that’s my specialty. 

In Aldi France’s “Christmas Before Christmas,” TBWAParis gives us a Santa we’ve never seen. He doesn’t live in a palace with elves, perpetually catering to the fantasies of children. This guy has a chic winter home, plays vinyls and doesn’t think about work off the clock. In this tale, he pulls a classic freelancer move, delivering gifts a day early so he can throw a Christmas Eve dinner bash (with ingredients sourced at Aldi). This story continues the brand’s modernized fairy tale vibe and reinforces its “fresh local produce” focus.

For the city of Hamburg, Jung von Matt Sports leveraged live team grouping draws for the UEFA Euro 2024 tournament. (Hamburg is among 10 cities where matches will be held in Germany, the host nation, next year.) Using huge shipping containers, the agency set up a 40-foot-high installation, dubbed “The Final Draw,” that replicated the actual draw in real-time. This required 25 containers, 12 forklifts and 70 port workers to accomplish. It was simulcast at Elbe Philharmonic Hall, and kicked off a larger campaign titled “Hamburg. Great Things Start Here.”

French NGO Terre de Liens depicts a woman living in a space shuttle, eating holographic food. It ends with her finding terra nova: The land we’re still on. Created by agency Strike, “Come Back Down to Earth” is designed to make the world of agriculture more appealing. In France, 200 farms vanish weekly, and 50,000 hectares of fertile land are paved over each year. One in three farmers will retire in 10 years without replacements. The ad marks 20 years of agricultural preservation for Terre de Liens, and arrives in the lee of a new law dubbed PLOAA, designed to trigger generational renewal in agriculture, partly by making sector jobs more attractive.

By now we’ve all heard that Ikea U.K. and Mother London have launched a limited edition turkey-sized meatball, “the ultimate Christmas dinner showstopper.” (It is not mammoth, but rather mostly chicken.) At over 9 pounds, the meatball comes boxed, accompanied by lingonberry jam and creamy sauce. You can either win one on Ikea’s social media or wait until Dec. 11 and hunt one down. For the herbivores (’cause you know this is not what PETA meant when it said “don’t eat turkey”), Ikea’s got a Veggieball Christmas Tree kit, too. 

Lack of dog blood donors is a problem for vets. Who knew? For client Bâtard (yes, “bastard”), a quarterly lifestyle dog-lovers magazine in France, We Are Social launched #BatardDonneur, whose premise is simple: When people Instagram dog-selfies with that hashtag, and include zip codes, local vets seeking blood can add those doggos to a volunteer donor database. 

“Long live the earth.” We hear that, and it’s a restful way to wrap the week. The ad in question, “An Homage to the Soil,” is for Swedish agricultural coop Lantmännen and makes use of BBC Green Planet cameraman Tim Shepherd, whose oeuvre shines here. The campaign acts as a gentle reminder that Earth is our source of food and life, and we need to take care of the soil for future generations. Work by Nord DDB.

Ariel Broggi has over 20 years of experience, working across art, copy and management. He’s served brands in the entertainment, technology and CPG sectors. Ariel has also directed for television and co-founded both an independent record label and a nationally distributed water brand.

We spent two minutes with Ariel to learn more about his background, his creative inspirations and recent work he’s admired.

Ariel, tell us …

Where you grew up, and where you live now.

Like most hardscrabble genius mathematicians, I grew up in Boston, mere miles from Matt and Ben. But I live in L.A. now.

How you first realized you were creative.

Watching MTV and compiling notes on the video concepts.

A person you idolized creatively early on.

Leo Lionni. I idolized his style of storytelling and artwork. He was able to reinvent himself as an author and visual artist after a legendary career in advertising.

A visual artist or band/musician you admire.

Stephen Malkmus. I was obsessed with his music, lyrics and album cover art.

Your favorite fictional character.

Jack Walsh and Jonathan Mardukas.

Someone or something worth following on social media.

@luxxury on IG.

One of your favorite creative projects you’ve ever worked on.

Sketch comedy videos I made with my friends in high school. The execution was terrible, but the concepts and writing were also terrible. I’m relieved that there are no social links to share, although evidence may still exist on a VHS tape in a basement somewhere. Working on a creative project with friends, regardless of the result, was a deeply formative experience.

A recent project you’re proud of.

With Illumination and Universal Pictures, we launched the Minions’ TikTok channel. It’s great to have clients who let us try things and create ridiculously fun content. And it was super satisfying to watch the #gentleminions craze take hold and see Minions: The Rise of Gru open as we crossed the 5-million follower mark.

Someone else’s work that inspired you years ago.

When I got my first agency job in Providence, my CD showed me a spot for the Raleigh International Spy Conference and it changed the way I thought about advertising. It was like hearing Minor Threat after growing up on nothing but top 40 radio. Smart, cheap, funny, DIY. But also totally strategic and effective.

Someone else’s work you admired lately.

Always a fan of the Young Jerks.

Your main strength as a creative person.

Confidence in my taste.

Your biggest weakness.

Multitasking

One thing that always makes you happy.

The song “Cut Your Hair.”

One thing that always makes you sad.

The last bite of a good Cuban sandwich. Also power, corruption and lies (the societal concepts, not the New Order album, which is an all-timer).

What you’d be doing if you weren’t in advertising.

Spending way more time alone.

We don’t know the identity of the person behind Deuxmoi, the Instagram account that’s being hailed as a modern day Gossip Girl, but we do know she was based in New York and had a career in fashion before she started sharing celebrity gossip to entertain herself during the pandemic. She has since grown Deuxmoi into a global phenomenon with a legion of followers in thrall to the unsubstantiated stories, salacious rumours and mundane facts about celebrities she churns out.

Deuxmoi is part of a new wave of interest in “Hollywood blind-item culture,” according to the L.A. Times, or unsubstantiated gossip from anonymous creators, such as @skinfluencebymsk, who shared the unsubstantiated claim that Ariana Grande had a secret affair with Jimmy Fallon. The success of dramas like Bridgerton, which revolve around society gossip, also owe a good deal into our increased desire for scandal and intrigue. The pandemic has contributed to this trend, as people working from home have been reporting missing office gossip.

But it’s not celebrity gossip that motivates the anonymous creator of Deuxmoi, it’s the community she’s created. In a recent interview, she said: “What’s enticing is the people I get to interact with. Celebrity is just a conduit for community.”

And this is in part why gossip is so pertinent to brand building. Gossip—i.e., having conversations about others and learning from their experiences—cements social connections and builds communities. 

Also, culture moves at the speed of social media. Just like gossip, culture on social spreads fast, and what’s trending now will be old news in a matter of hours. To be part of the cultural moment and to stay relevant, all brands should learn the art of a good gossip. The traditional brand approach of being on broadcast doesn’t work on social, no matter how much marketing budget you invest. If you don’t capture those trending moments, you fail to engage. 

As a brand, you can’t drive culture by talking about the products you make or services you provide. You need to find a way to be part of a bigger conversation that others want to take part in. Brands can connect by putting out content and posts that capture how people are feeling about what’s happening in the moment in society and culture.

A great example of this is Ryanair, which has a tongue-in-cheek social media presence that elevates the brand way beyond its sector and inserts it into popular culture. Ryanair’s witty and scathing jokes and memes on social include calling Ryan Reynolds “daddy,” muting Boris Johnson on Safer Internet Day, and sending up Novak Djokovic’s claim not to be an anti-vaxer while refusing to get a jab by responding: “We’re not an airline, but we do fly planes.”

Key to success is remembering that, as a brand, you can’t control the conversation, in the same way you can’t really control gossip once it spreads. Brands need to understand that they don’t own their own presence or assets on social, such as hashtags. The true social value for brands and communities comes when audiences build around what brands bring to the table—not when they control them. Brands can steer or guide people, but they can’t tell them what to say or do because that’s not how social media works.

And social is just the beginning; with the arrival of web3 and NFTs, marketers will get a deeper understanding of what it means to open up ownership of a brand to wider communities. A decentralized web3 gives control back to the users, and instead of platforms or big corporations taking ownership, it’s people and audiences. So when brands jump into web3, they need to understand that, more than ever, they are granting ownership to users.

A good gossip is always compelling, and that’s why everyone loves to engage in it. It can also turn you into the life of the party, and what brand wouldn’t want that?

With Pride Month in full swing, but many IRL parades and events canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, LGBTQ+ celebrations are migrating online in a big way.

Sundry organizations and brands have gone this route, and now Global Pride is raising the rainbow flag of equality and respect inside the enormously popular Animal Crossing game on the Nintendo Switch platform.

We Are Social Singapore developed the multifaceted initiative. Launched last week and teased in the clip below, #GlobalPrideCrossing seeks to provide a safe place for LGBTQ+ folks of all genders, orientations, colors and ethnicities to celebrate online.

Elements include customizable Pride Islands, created with Swipe Back, featuring rainbow fashions for Animal Crossing avatars, message boards, catwalks and space for marches. On June 27, Twitch creators including ShubbleYT, AndrewArcade, ZoeTwoDots and Loveabilities will livestream Animal Crossing sessions and host special activities.

“We all knew that this year’s Pride celebrations were never going to be the same, with communities all over the world still in various stages of lockdown,” says Andrew Baker, co-president of InterPride, which directs Global Pride along with the European Pride Organizers Association and other groups. “So when We Are Social Singapore approached us with the idea to create a virtual space, using a platform already popular within the LGBTQ+ community, where people could safely come together to express and celebrate their identities, we jumped at the chance.”

Gamers can make donations via fundraising tool Tiltify to boost LGBTQ+ causes and diverse communities impacted by Covid-19. #GlobalPrideCrossing also plans to support Black Lives Matter by resharing relevant content.

“With the cancellation of physical Pride events around the world, we wanted to provide a way for people to participate in celebrations wherever they are,” We Are Social innovations director Arnaud Robin tells Muse. “Pride is an important event for many—often it gives hope and a sense of community and belonging.”

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons was already a creative outlet for the LGBTQ+ community, ​so we used this game to give people the tools to freely express themselves even further and get involved, particularly those who have never been able to join in a Pride celebration for whatever reason,” he says.

CREDITS

We Are Social Singapore
Christina Chong, Managing Director
Craig Howie, Executive Creative Director
Ian Jahng, Creative Director
Arnaud Robin, Innovation Director
Alessio Laudato, Senior Art Director
Jeremy Lim, Copywriter
Boone Wong, Head of Copy
Benn Tan, Art Director
Erasmus Ess William, Head of Video Production
YouQuan Fu, Senior Media Artist
Ernie Sulastri, Motion Graphics Artist
Clio Goh, Producer
Werner Lucksch, Planning Director
Melantha Tan, Strategist
Benjamin Oi, Associate Account Director
Denicia Lew, Senior Account Executive
Javern Chua, Account Management Intern

InterPride
Andrew Baker, Co-President

European Pride Organizers Association (EPOA)
Steve Taylor, Communications Director

Swipe Back
Max Vedel, Creative Director
Nikhil Roy, Creative Director
Fabrice Starzinskas, Producer
Lucile Araud, Art Director