John Young

John Young

CEO at Young Brands
Cambridge, MA, United States

About me

John Young is a true champion of brands and media at the forefront of innovation. John helps companies flourish and connect with people in amazing ways – online, offline, mobile, social, in-store, on-screen, in-game, on-wrist... across every device, experience and internet of everything in-between.

As a passionate collaborator with company CEO’s, boards and their teams, John’s strategic guidance helps ambitious brands, like Zipcar, Priceline, Riot Games, American Idol and DoubleClick, grow from grassroots into billion dollar businesses. John has also helped some of the world’s most popular brands become even more successful. Disney, Pepsi, Microsoft, McDonald’s, GE, Budweiser, Hasbro, Sony, IBM, Unilever, J&J, and General Mills, to name a few.

John is credited with creating several legendary public and private global digital media companies. Notably, John was a founder of Tribal DDB Worldwide (OMC), an award-winning agency network with 46 offices in 28 countries. John was also Chief Creative Officer of Poppe-Tyson (MMPT now PUB), one of the world’s first digital agencies boasting numerous online originals and famed innovations.

John presently serves on the boards of up-and-coming digital media and consumer brand companies as a valued director and advisor. John’s strategic savvy, creative sensibility and collaborative style foster energized environments where people, ideas and business can truly proper.

Specialties:
• Mobile, social, digital trailblazer. Entrepreneur, operator and investor.
• Board advisor to fast-moving media, entertainment and technology companies;
providing hands-on brand, business and marketing expertise and assistance.
• Proud founder of some of the most creative and successful advertising,
marketing and digital agencies in the world.
• Award-winning creative director, strategist and designer.
• Nurturer and champion of aspiring talent.

Sector Experience

Positions

Board Director / Vice Chairman
Earplay, Inc.
United States
2014 - Present (10 years 10 months)
Earplay is an exciting new interactive audio platform for all media and devices. Our eyes-free, hands-free interactive audio technology delivers immersive stories you can play with your voice in remarkable ways on your mobile devices, in the car, and throughout your connected home (with a hugely popular presence on Amazon Alexa, Google Home and more to come, soon).

Although we produce content, Earplay is also a powerful mediatech platform for the development and distribution of all varieties of interactive audio experiences. Our collaborative development tools and technology enable teams of creators to achieve fast production cycles, instant distribution, and dynamic updates across all relevant consumer channels. There’s truly magic inside here.
Board Director / Co-Founder
Whipper
United Kingdom
2014 - Present (10 years 10 months)
Whipper is a gamified messaging platform that gives people around the world the ability to chat and play in real-time as their favorite characters across the media and devices of their choice. Our business is centered around a virtual goods marketplace fueled by massive micro-purchases and delighting users with our advanced speech and virtual cosplay technology.
Founder / Partner
Archtop Ventures
United States
2013 - Present (11 years 10 months)
Through Archtop Ventures, John fuels people and ideas that make the world a better, more interesting and rewarding place. With a driving mission to provide people more value, choice, convenience, control and fun in their lives, John helps innovative companies succeed at the forefront of media, entertainment, and technology: ITV, Mobile, Social, Games, Ecommerce, eSports, eLearning, Big Data, and all things Lifestyle. Archtop Ventures is focused on making investments in emerging growth and middle market companies positioning them for rapid growth and market leadership. Accordingly, Archtop built three significant growth platforms, Mediatech (w/ the Musicmaker / School of Rock learning network), Healthtech (w/predictive health innovator HGE Healthcare) and Foodtech (w/ superfood aggregator Combine-X).
CEO
Young Brands
United States
2012 - Present (12 years 10 months)
John is a director and advisor working with a select group of innovative consumer media, entertainment, and technology companies at the cross-section of Hollywood Blvd, Madison Ave, Silicon Valley and Main Street.

Through his consultancy, Young Brands, John helps new and growing companies transform into world-famous brands. Partnering with CEOs, boards and their teams, John provides strategic support and guidance to consumer brands, media / entertainment companies (gaming, iTV, eSports, eLearning, eCommerce, AR/VR, etc), technology providers (mobile / social / digital / wearable eco-systems), creative agencies, content developers and enlightened investors. John is working with powerhouses like Coca Cola, Ogilvy, Emirates Airlines, Riot Games (with partners Twitch, ESL and Turtle), American Idol (w/ AT&T), Hershey, Bunge, Freeman... as well as several developing spunky stealth ventures who you’ll hear from soon.
Musician / Producer / Composer
Freelance
United States
1981 - Present (43 years 10 months)
LocationWorldwide
Produced and performed with artists on Sire / Warner Brothers Records, Cleopatra Records, Play It Again Sam Records, Dark Entries Records, Fundamental Records, Red Records, Verdugo Records, Pyramid Records. Featured in Rolling Stone, Spin Magazine, Andy Warhol’s Interview, Rockpool, Rock America, MTV 120 Minutes, Universal Television / Miami Vice, Radio Télévision Belge Francophone and more. Also composed and produced scores for television, movies, theatre, dance and performance art - Paramount Pictures, Comcast, Motion Picture Corporation of America (MPCA), Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia Theatre Company, University of the Arts and more
Board Of Advisors
d50 Media / Sokolove
2013 - 2016 (3 years)
On the d50 Media/Sokolove advisory team, John supported management and helped this premier direct response powerhouse organize, optimize and prepare for the eventual sale of the company. d50’s focused on considered consumer brands and products, legal and financial services, experiential entertainment, healthcare, education, and non-profit organizations. They obsessively and repeatedly drive tremendous results across big dynamic media placements though data smarts and agile targeting and deployment.
Founder / Chief Strategist
Full Contact
2006 - 2013 (7 years)
Capitalizing on Keefe and Young's success, John founded Full Contact with the noble mission of becoming the best little world-class agency in the land. Full Contact promptly established itself as a fast growing creative shop offering highly innovative programs that build brands and incite their customers... from integrated strategic planning to campaign development and every sort of offline, online, mobile, social, digital production and product development. Full Contact's clients have included Zipcar, Disney, Calvin Klein, Monster.com, Disney Digital Books, Stride Rite, City Sports, Au Bon Pain, The Boston Globe and Boston.com, Mass Audubon, Yankee Candle, Cumberland Farms, Constant Contact, and Olivio. In the fall of 2012, John sold his ownership interest in the company to his remaining partners.
CEO / Chief Creative Officer
Keefe and Young
2002 - 2013 (11 years)
With partner and longtime pal Christopher Keefe, John created a cross-continent cross-media creative agency named simply Keefe and Young. The company delivered strategic brand planning, product development and campaign deployment for world-class brands - from identity, packaging, television, print, radio, online, events, mobile, online gaming, guerrilla, viral and out of home. Clients and projects included Disney.com, Microsoft MSN, Toontown Online, Coca-Cola, Playhouse Disney, Family.com, McCann Worldgroup, Subway, The Martin Agency, Shasta Sodas, Comcast, Reader's Digest, Movies.com, MMB, American Idol / AT&T, National Beverage Corp and The Girl Scouts. In 2006, Keefe and Young was renamed Full Contact (see above) to reflect the rapidly growing company.
Founder / Chief Creative Officer
Tribal DDB Worldwide
1998 - 2002 (4 years)
John, with partners Matt Freeman and Steven Marrs, created Omnicom Group’s Tribal DDB to not only be the ideal agency of the future but to be the agency they had always wanted to work at. Together they were responsible for developing a world-renown 46 office agency network in 28 countries with over 1000 professionals practicing strategy & planning, creative, media, production, technology, and digital business innovation for a prestigious group of clients including Pepsi (including Pepsi Stuff), Budweiser (including Whassup), McDonald’s, Microsoft, JCPenney, Sony Electronics, Volkswagon, Midway Games, HP/Compaq, Unilever, Best Buy and Universal Studios. The results were nothing less than astounding; growing the Tribal DDB from zero to over 100’s of millions in revenue in just the first few years. And our hard work was praised by client and customer alike from here to Cannes for its creativity, innovation and effectiveness.
Chief Creative Officer
DDB Digital
1998 - 2002 (4 years)
see Tribal DDB Worldwide description above

Education

BFA

1977 - 1981 (4 years)

1977 (1 year)

1971 - 1977 (6 years)

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