Polly Beale HeadshotYou want candid honesty about the advertising industry? Meet Polly Beale, founder of A Very Good Agency and industry veteran. I enjoyed this conversation with Polly so much because her career is fascinating, but she also cares deeply about her work as a marketer and has spent a good portion of her career helping women and people of color with equity. 

As the founder of A Very Good Agency, is an award-winning advertising veteran who served as a Creative Director for some of the world’s largest agencies, has devoted her career to mentoring and supporting women and minorities in advertising.  For the past 30 years, Beale has worked at several of the most prestigious advertising agencies worldwide, including Grey, Saatchi and Saatchi and Publicis, based in London. She has served as creative director of The Times and Sunday Times in London, where she co-led the launch of timesonline.com and initiated a department committed to immersive branded content.  After moving to Los Angeles, Beale co-founded A Very Good Agency on a unique model of hybrid strategy, creative and production/content development, with a focus on original, evocative cause marketing. 

In this episode: 

  • Polly’s fascinating career journey from a London art school to becoming a creative director in Moscow, and then on to founding her own firm
  • How marketers can serve through representation 
  • Tips for people who find themselves working for someone who has less experience than them
  • Why focus groups don’t work
  • The ways that marketers contribute to oppression and repression 
  • Being responsible for emotional labor in the workplace

Episode 11 Servant Marketing Snacks