Daniel Lee
I help established brands grow by bringing challenger-brand sharpness in culture and media to big-brand scale, without losing coherence.
about.
Senior planning and creative strategy leader with client-side and agency experience. I help established brands define big ideas strong enough to hold a brand world together, then find fresh, different ways for those ideas to show up without becoming random. That means turning one strategic centre of gravity into campaigns, partnerships, social ideas, retail activations and experiences that build relevance, attention and growth. I’ve done this across global, regional and local roles for brands including Google, Coca-Cola, Dove, Vaseline, Philadelphia, Mastercard, Lucozade, Vodafone, Uber, Samsung and EY.
Led Philadelphia strategy across campaign, retail and partnership work, helping the brand grow despite category decline. This included Christmas activity that delivered Mondelez's first perfect-scoring campaign in MetrixLab testing and The Philly Deli, a collaboration with New York Bakery that tapped into food culture and drove brand and sales growth.
Led UK briefing for Vaseline Verified, helping shape how the global platform translated into a credible social-led response to unsafe skincare hacks. The wider campaign delivered 63M+ interactions, 13.9% sales growth and Cannes Lions recognition.
Built a coherent cultural ecosystem for Coca-Cola's Paris 2024 Olympics activity, translating the global "hug" platform across markets, social, influencer, partnerships and live experiences. The work connected tailored creative for different audiences into one unified journey, helping increase share of voice, support the sale of 200m special cans and deliver DMA and Global Influencer Marketing Awards wins.
Built an AI-enabled planning and creative development workflow for Google Pixel and Gemini, combining cultural listening, synthetic audience testing and modular creative templates to help teams move faster from signal to brief to idea, while protecting quality and brand safety.
Built strategy functions and planning systems across client-side and agency environments, including scaling an in-house agency from 5 to 30 specialists at Lucozade Ribena Suntory and defining planning processes, briefing standards and strategic frameworks at Digital Natives.
brands.
writing.
My son does not care who Bad Bunny is. He wants skills, rainbow flicks and Brexit tackles.
A tiny film poster detail about who gets seen, who gets named, and who gets left out.
Football's fashion club is easy to admire. That does not mean it has cultural edge.
Everyone asks how AI might replace juniors. Maybe we should start at the top.
What Red Bull Culture Clash understood about brand strategy that most culture marketing still misses.
Brand strategy has got very good at making everything sound profound. Maybe too good.
selected work.
Translating Lucozade Energy’s positivity proposition into a creator-led content chain with a clear Gen Z participation mechanic.
Reframing safety from technical features into a human trust platform built around real voices, reassurance and social proof.
Using London Marathon energy as a reactive social moment for Google Gemini, turning the race into playful product relevance.
Turning a beauty creator lens hack into a social proof point for Vaseline Verified, showing how the brand already lived inside useful culture.
Using food culture and a New York Bakery partnership to turn Philadelphia into a more specific, appetite-led social idea.
Making a legacy snack brand relevant to modern protein, convenience and chicken-shop culture without losing its oddball edge.
Turning Christmas hosting tensions into a social-first Philadelphia campaign built around the emotional highs and lows of festive food culture.
Turning disrupted sport moments into a social-first role for Lucozade Sport: supporting PTs and at-home exercise communities.
Turning Ribena’s playful craft credentials into practical social content that gave people small creative outlets during lockdown.
Using young voices and social-first creative to make the opportunity gap tangible for donors during COVID-19.
Translating Coca-Cola’s “hug” platform into Gen Z-facing social and influencer work for the Olympics.
contact.