FREELANCE BRAND STRATEGY DIRECTOR
I’m Etienne, a freelance brand strategist who’s spent the last decade+ working both brand and agency side.
I’m as comfortable diving into the creative process as I am zooming out to create systems and processes that allow great work to happen.
My areas of focus are:
foundational brand positioning
visual identity
brand architecture
advertising campaigns
qualitative research
competitive analyses
Select clients:
Coinbase, Copeland, Chromebook, Google Cloud, Grammarly, Retool, Semester at Sea, Zoox
Interested in working together? Let’s chat: hi@etiennema.com
NICE THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID ABOUT ME
Etienne is the person I turn to when a problem is messy, complicated, and charged. That's because on every single project I've worked on with him, he brings an insightful, balanced, rigorously thought-through perspective that he's somehow packaged up in a simple, plain-spoken answer. Etienne wades into clouded and murky (and often conflicting) interests and untangles things into strategies that help me know exactly what to do next.
Etienne is curious and intuitive. He finds texture and meaning in the ordinary, making even the most mundane things extraordinary and layered. He tunes into the nuance of an idea, weeds out the excess, and elevates what matters most. It's an equation for putting great work into the world because it brings along leaders, influences partner teams, and energizes creative thinkers.
Anna Sternoff
Director of Brand Strategy, Dropbox
Etienne was one of the biggest game changers for how I approached brand and creative. The work we did together, and the way we did it, are some of my proudest career moments.
So many of the lessons I learned from him about brand strategy guided me through how I thought through the Zapier rebrand.
He's a genuine real deal. Work with him before he's booked out years in advance.
Michael Jeter
Head of Brand, Stripe (formerly Creative Director, Zapier)
SELECT WORK
BRAND POSITIONING AND VISUAL IDENTITY
Repositioned from a century-old HVAC/R company focused on efficiency to a sustainability leader.
Repositioned from a Discord membership tool for sneaker flippers to a payments infrastructure company for entrepreneurial misfits.
Led the internal tooling company’s first brand positioning ahead of its first rebrand.
BRAND SYSTEMS
Dropbox Brand Architecture
I developed and operationalized Dropbox’s first corporate family tree. In addition to the move to a branded house, I developed the processes behind things like the naming and branding of products and features, ensuring consistency from advertising through to product, and creating brand guidelines for acquisitions.
A System for Advertising
I led the strategy to create a modular advertising system for Dropbox. The visual and conceptual toolkit allowed us and internal partners to more easily “DIY” our own campaigns.
The first campaign was “For All Things Worth Saving,” but the construct was designed to accommodate other products and features (eg. “For All Photos Worth Preserving” or “For All Projects Worth Sharing”).*
*In collaboration with Instrument
CAMPAIGN WORK
Adobe Marketing Cloud
As part of Adobe’s “Do You Know What Your Marketing Is Doing?” campaign targeting CMOs, I had the opportunity to make fun of marketers and their trend-chasing ways. Topics included data overload, Super Bowl marketing, mobile experiences, and many more.
Adobe Stock
We showed off the creative possibilities of stock photography to launch Adobe Stock. The campaign, “Make A Masterpiece,” recreated the lost and stolen paintings of Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Frida Kahlo, and others—entirely with stock photography.
Doritos Rainbows
In broadening the Doritos brand beyond slapstick Super Bowl humor into more earnest, cause-driven efforts that Gen Z cared about, we launched Doritos Rainbows, a real product launched in Frito-Lay’s backyard at Dallas Pride. It celebrated that “There’s Nothing Bolder Than Being Yourself,” and was the fastest-selling product in Frito-Lay history. My favorite quip, from Seth Meyers: “It’s the only time finishing a bag of Doritos has been associated with pride.”