Will Burns: This Fractional Brand Consultant Comes With A Fractional Creative Department

will burns: fractional brand consultant & CEO Ideasicle x

Contact:

PH: 617-304-3268

E: willb@ideasicle.com

Live video consultation: Will Burns on Intro

This Fractional Brand Consultant Comes With A Fractional Creative Department

After 30+ years in advertising, my mission in life is to work help businesses vanquish their marketing problems, one idea at a time. Retainer relationships (or projects) with clients or with agencies. And if needed, I built a very powerful tool, Ideasicle X, which gives us access to some of the greatest advertising minds in the country for ideas at will (no pun intended). It’s truly like a fractional creative department.

Click around and learn about my experience and offerings and then let’s talk.

CONSULTING SERVICES

Fractional Brand Consultant (retainer)
- Agencies and client-side marketers
- Attend all business dev meetings, brand idea development/implementation, ongoing strategic communications consulting, manage creative development, and overall “on call” strategic/creative perspective
Client-side projects:
- Brand ideas - research, idea development (taglines), manifestos (case studies)
- Communications plans
- Creative briefs that inspire (my perspective on briefs)
- Building compelling presentations: narratives, outlines, composition for better selling, rehearsals (sample insights)
- Presentation narratives
Agency projects:
- Pitch materials audit: review RFPs, presentations, creative work, pitch strategies, and prepare recommendations to improve
- Pitch prep: pitch strategies, RFP writing, presentation narratives, etc.
- Differentiation: help find their “differentiating obsession” (more here)
Ideasicle X ideas: I manage Ideasicle X idea projects and productions for clients and agencies, tapping into our world-class, hand-picked creative teams virtually, present 10+ ideas per round
Presentations & workshops (click here for more on these presentations):
- “Channel The Brand (Don’t Just Brand The Channel)” - fundamentals of branding, 2 hours plus 30 minute workshop
- “Presentation 101: The Art Of” - co-presentation with Monica Taylor including best practices for composing/designing great presentations and for high impact delivery, 90 minutes
- “Virtues of Virtual Idea Generation” - turns out there are many surprising ways I’ve found virtual creativity in groups is better than in-person brainstorms
- “The Science of Creativity” - multiple research studies that I’ve uncovered over the years that show us how we can improve our creativity, 1 hour
- “Ideasicle X Overview” - credentials presentation about the revolutionary idea generation platform

North Advertising: “Real is Beautiful” brand idea

Heat Advertising: “Power of Surprise” brand idea

Ketovie: “Everyday is everything” brand idea

MP (formerly MassPay): “Wired for HR” brand idea

Back of the Baseball Card:

Current: Founder & CEO of virtual idea generation platform, Ideasicle X, and brand consultant

Agencies: Wieden, Goodby, Arnold, Mullen, Boathouse, Leonard-Monahan, HBM Creamer

Forbes Contributor (2011-2020): The importance of creativity in modern branding.

College: Hamilton College

Superpower: Knowing a great idea when I see one

Most Dramatic New Business Win: RadioShack while at Arnold. We were not invited, so I wrote the pitch consultant a letter that made the case to include us. It was VERY direct and VERY critical of the RadioShack brand. We not only got into the pitch as the 21st agency, we went on to win. The client then framed the letter as a gift.

Most Emotional Professional Moment: Receiving a PowerPoint slide I composed (below) to pitch Paul McCartney to Fidelity. Paul signing it meant he consumed something I created, and not the other way around. Mind blown.

Bio:

Anyone who has worked with me knows that I love nothing more than either coming up with, or witnessing the birth of, a great marketing idea. Seriously, I get the chills. So it’s no surprise, I suppose, that I'm channeling my energy and experience into a unique offering like Ideasicle X, where nothing is unthinkable and ideas are everything.

In 2010 I founded Ideasicle and served as Lead Brand Strategist. At about the same time, I became a Forbes Contributor. But for over 20 formative years before that I criss-crossed the country experiencing the best creative agencies in the world.

I learned as a pup from creative greats, David Lubars and David Baldwin, at Leonard/Monahan in Providence, RI. I've witnessed the magic of Jeff Goodby at Goodby Silverstein in San Francisco, CA. I was immersed in the culture of unabashed creativity and attitude of Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, OR. I’ve seen ghosts in the old "mansion" of Mullen in Wenham, MA. I felt the power of an agency startup with Boathouse in Needham, MA. And I won over $1 billion in new business billings as head of business development at Arnold in Boston.

All the while meeting what would one day become my team of Ideasicle Experts, nearly all of whom I worked with at one of my past agencies. And now it has all led up to the launching of the first SaaS platform designed specifically for virtual idea generation, Ideasicle X.

I volunteered for six years with the Hamilton/Wenham Edfund, serving on its board of directors. And my plan one day is to create a similar foundation, but devoted entirely to funding ways to teach creativity in public schools. Not just teaching talents (trumpet, theater, art, etc.), but teaching creativity itself to kids.

BRAND EXPERIENCE:

I have had hands-on experience with such amazing brands as Microsoft, HP, Titleist, Purina, Paul McCartney, Polaroid, Volvo, Progressive Insurance, Fidelity, RadioShack, Tyson Chicken, Umbro, Miller High Life, Stanley Tools, AMD, Staples, CVS, New York Times, Warner Music, Constant Contact, Vistaprint, AMD, Lowe’s, RetailMeNot, SharkNinja, Seybert’s Billiards, JobGet, Purina, and many more.

Through my branding experiences one thing has become clear: a company without a galvanizing brand idea is a company forced into random acts of marketing. This realization was the thrust of my Forbes column and is now the thrust of everything we do here at Ideasicle X.