Fearless to create socially-minded campaigns for corporations, foundations and non-profits, providing a 360° end-to-end offering through built-in distribution across Fusion’s platforms
Fusion today announced it is forming Fearless, an innovative, groundbreaking full-service social impact agency platform, in partnership with distinguished advertising executives Alex Bogusky, Dagny Scott and Leslie Freeman. From big ideas and creative execution to strategic media planning and measurement, Fearless will help socially-minded corporations, foundations and non-profits develop 360° campaigns while providing the added value of a built-in millennial audience through Fusion’s television, social and digital platforms.
Fearless will enable clients to engage with an ultra-connected audience in all of the places they consume media. The agency will develop multi-platform content spanning video, art, text, comedy, documentaries, television, events, and sharable content, all with an eye toward raising awareness and moving millennials to action on key issues and ideas that encourage positive change in the world.
The Fearless team is a combination of the best strategic, creative and digital minds in the business – a group that knows how to unlock opportunities and create new energy and influence. Always drawn towards a cause, Alex Bogusky has created groundbreaking initiatives such as the Truth anti-tobacco campaign, which is considered one the most successful social advertising campaigns in U.S. history. In 2010, Alex received the rare honor of being named “Creative Director of the Decade” by Adweek. Joining him are two innovative brand and campaign strategists, Dagny Scott and Leslie Freeman, who have successfully repositioned everything from baby carrots to climate change.
Among Fearless’ first partners are Live Earth, a global series of concerts to promote action on climate change, and The California Endowment.
“Mashing up agency and media solves a huge problem for socially-minded clients who have incredibly compelling messages but no way to find their audience,” said Alex Bogusky, Fearless co-founder. “Fusion is striking the right tone. Although millennials are more interested in doing good, they aren’t motivated by the same old dry boring, righteous approach. They have the attitude that changing the world can and needs to be fun. And I happen to agree with that.”
“Fusion has always had a worldview that believes when the millennial generation is informed and engaged, it has the power to create positive social change,” said Fusion CEO Isaac Lee. “Fearless will be a tool for companies and organizations who are looking to engage with and energize an audience that is hungry to move the world forward in ways big and small.”
Young Americans are increasingly involved in the causes they care about – with 75 percent saying they donate to a causes they care about and 63 percent saying they give their time to volunteer. [Millennial Impact Report, 2012]. Similarly, a Nielsen survey conducted last year concluded that 55 percent of online consumers are willing to pay more for products from organizations that are committed to positive social and environmental impact.
Fusion will be opening an office in Boulder, Colorado where Fearless will be based. Fusion, which is headquartered in Miami, also has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Oakland. Fusion Chief Strategy Officer Boris Gartner will be working closely with the agency.
About the Fearless Team
Alex Bogusky’s career in communications began over twenty years ago when he joined Crispin and Porter Advertising. Under Alex’s direction, Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) grew to more than 1,000 employees, with offices in Miami, Boulder, Los Angeles, London and Sweden, and with annual billings over $1billion. During Alex’s leadership, CP+B became the world’s most awarded advertising agency. In 2008, he was inducted into the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame. And in 2010, Alex received the rare honor of being named "Creative Director of the Decade” by Adweek magazine.
Since leaving CP+B in 2010, he and his wife, Ana, keep busy with several initiatives including: Al Gore’s, Climate Reality Project and 24 Hours of Reality - the most highly viewed streaming web program to date. COMMON, a collaborative network for accelerating social ventures; Made, an advertising agency in Boulder; Humanaut, a marketing agency in Chattanooga; and Boomtown, a tech-startup accelerator focused on media and ad-tech. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, with Ana and their two teenage children.
Dagny Scott is known for developing category-leading positioning for brands, businesses and issues and overseeing the development of such positioning into creative campaigns and communications.
Scott was most recently a Managing Director co-leading The Glover Park Group’s Branding & Strategic Transformations Division, where she spearheaded strategic planning for a range of the firm’s corporate brands and advocacy campaigns including Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.
Dagny joined GPG from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, where she was the head of the agency’s global strategic planning department. As Director of Cultural and Business Insights, Dagny oversaw the strategy for brands including MetLife, Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone, Nike, Old Navy, Kraft, Baby Carrots, Best Buy and the Alliance for Climate Protection. Over the years she has received multiple awards and recognition for her work from the industry, including the Jay Chiat Awards for Strategic Excellence and the Effie Awards.
Prior to joining CP+B, Dagny was the Director of Insights for Radar Communications, a marketing and research firm, where her clients included Levi’s, Starbucks, Sprint and Johnson & Johnson. She started her career in the publishing industry, serving as news editor of The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper and editor-in-chief of Women’s Sports & Fitness magazine. Dagny has a Master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. A former competitive distance runner, she is the author of Runner’s World Complete Book of Women’s Running. She is based in Boulder, Colorado.
Leslie Freeman works at the front line of business and culture transformation. Her expertise is in brand and campaign strategy, leading clients through important moments of change, whether it be positioning, branding and building influence or moving and connecting ideas and audiences in new ways. Most recently she served as a Managing Director at The Glover Park Group co-leading the Branding & Strategic Transformations practice, working with a range of corporate, non-profit and culture-shaping clients with a focus on strategy, insight and creative campaign development.
Leslie joined GPG from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, where she led game-changing strategy and campaign creation for clients such as American Express, Volkswagen, Gap Inc., Activision and MetLife. Her work received top honors including multiple Jay Chiat Awards for Strategic Excellence and other major industry accolades such as the CLIO and Effie Awards.
Prior, Leslie served at TBWA\Media Arts Lab leading digital advertising for Apple, helping to establish the group as a standalone global agency to service Apple as its singular client. Her work included the reveal and launch of the very first iPhone as well as the “Get a Mac” campaign, one of the most recognized case studies in advertising, which received the Grand Effie award.
Leslie was an early pioneer of digital media, leading large-scale interactive projects for major technology, fashion, museum and pharmaceutical brands at IconNicholson (now DigitasLBi) in New York. She worked at Forrester Research conducting research and consulting on the then-nascent intersection of technology and marketing. Leslie started her career in publishing in editorial positions at Random House and Rolling Stone magazine.
Leslie is a graduate of Swarthmore College. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
About Fusion
Fusion is a multi-platform media company that serves a young, diverse, and inclusive millennial generation across its television and digital platforms (fusion.net). Fusion delivers a unique mix of news, pop culture, and comedy content that is both smart and irreverent. Fusion was launched as a joint venture between Univision Communications Inc. and the Disney/ABC Television Network on October 28, 2013. Fusion has agreements with several major distributors to carry the cable network including DirecTV, Dish, Cablevision, Charter, Cox, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS and Google Fiber as well as OTT providers like Apple TV. @ThisIsFusion | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Instagram | Google+ | Tumblr