Marc Lefton, Strategy Director at Catch 24 Advertising & Design in New York, NY

About

20 years of experience straddling design, creative and strategy in advertising, marketing and startups. I founded Half Fiction in 2009 to offer a wide variety of integrated marketing talent to startup and emerging companies too busy to manage multiple partners at the strategic level.

FOR STARTUPS:

• Naming, initial brand development and domain search/negotiation

• Recruiting founding team members

• Product development and revenue models

• Market research, ethnography

• Beautifully designed investor decks that get checkbooks out

• Live wireframes and technical documentation to shop to developers ensuring less misunderstanding and waste

• Executive recruiting for C level talent, advisory board

• Launch marketing plans and user acquisition strategies

FOR EMERGING BRANDS:

• Managing your chaotic group of 10 partner agencies to work harmoniously with each other

• Finding new partner agencies

• Branding

• Integrated marketing

• PR

• Digital Strategy

• SEM, SEO, Facebook Ad buying

• Account Planning

• Creative Direction

FOR ESTABLISHED BRANDS:

• That little but important project your ad agency totally forgot about

• That new social media site your niece is using that your ad agency never heard of

• Finding out about that social media site your niece forgot to tell you about.

Education

Masters Detention

Commack High School

1988 - 1992

Experience

Strategy Director

Catch 24 Advertising & Design

Feb 2013 - Present (13 years 5 months)

Bring the integrated and constant-beta approach I specialized in building with Half Fiction into an established design and branding agency. Head up new business efforts and overall strategic direction of existing clients including Lufthansa and the New York Yankees.
Partner, Creative

Half Fiction

Nov 2009 - Present (16 years 8 months)

• Original founding partner
• Developed the vision, short and long term business strategies
• Lead the agency's creative and strategic discipline
• Develop organizational capacity in multiple disciplines

Half Fiction is a fast-growing creative-driven marketing agency based in New York City focused on emerging technologies and integrating them seamlessly into well-thought out, dynamic marketing initiatives that generate authenticity, buzz, word of mouth and passionate fans.

Half Fiction was acquired by Catch24 Advertising in February 2013.
Founder and President

Adholes.com

Nov 2004 - Present (21 years 8 months)

Adholes.com is a 6,500 member social network and blogging platform for colleagues of advertising, media, public relations and marketing to share ideas and network. We're currently seeking sponsors who wish to reach our thousands of readers who work at top-100 agencies, primarily in creative, account and media.
VP, Business Development

InfiniGraph

Jan 2012 - Nov 2012 (10 months)

Create opportunities for brands to harness the intelligence of 800 million people interacting with 3.2 billion pieces of content per week.
Creative Director

Escalate

Sep 2006 - May 2010 (3 years 8 months)

Lead the creative department to create integrated experiential, word of mouth, social media and interactive campaigns from concept to completion. Clients included Coca-Cola, Coke Zero, Simply Orange, Minute Maid, Haier, Tic Tac, Sara Lee, Samsung, Chevy, Mercury, Condé Nast, and Royal Bank of Canada. Participate in IMC process with partner agencies such as Wieden + Kennedy and Crispin Porter Bogusky. Uphold creative and ethics to the highest standards of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.
President

Jampacks

Jul 2002 - Oct 2004 (2 years 3 months)

Create and develop new advertising mediums that combine entertainment and consumer lifestyle brands. Develop all sales materials, oversee design and production of company materials. Lead the development of social networking division in partnership with software vendor and create a buzz around two successful sites on a pocket-change budget. Oversee teams of talent scouts and keep up with current trends in underground music and film.
Art Director

Brand Buzz

1999 - 2000 (1 year)

Concept integrated marketing campaigns leveraging partner agencies owned and operated by Young and Rubicam for Campbell's, Lincoln, KFC, Dr. Pepper, The United Nations and Toblerone.
Creative

Blum Group

Mar 1999 - Sep 1999 (6 months)

Concept advertising campaigns for RC Cola, Diet Rite, ABC News, Columbia School of Business, Lalique and Tracfone.
Art Director

Ammirati Puris Lintas

1998 - 1998

Accounts included United Parcel Service, RCA, GMC, Labatt's Blue and Dos Equis.
Junior Art Director

BBDO New York

1995 - 1997 (2 years)

Accounts included Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, HBO, Pizza Hut, Campbell's, Visa, Armstrong, Fed Ex and M&Ms.
Junior Art Director

BBDO

1995 - 1997 (2 years)

Linked In keeps asking me to fill this in. I Brought it Back and Did it Over.

Awards

Addies, Webby Honoree, Print Regional Design Annual, CA

Skills

Elsewhere on the Web

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On Coroflot

@marclefton, member since 2011

Following 12
Followers 6

Marc Lefton

Brand Design Lead

Associate Industrial Designer