Meet Robby Egan, who recently joined our Portland team

Recently, we welcomed Robby Egan to the Mindshare family, as Global Communications Planning Director for Team Nike in our Portland office. Robby joined us from R/GA, where he served as Strategy Director, establishing the strategy discipline in Portland. Before that, he’d spent nearly a decade at agencies in New York, including Anomaly, Barbarian Group, KBS, Translation, and Publicis. He’s worked on clients ranging from BMW and Major League Baseball to Coca-Cola and Pepsi to McDonald’s, State Farm, KIND Snacks, Panera Bread, and even helping launch the Brooklyn Nets franchise.

Originally hailing from Salt Lake City, Robby is an avid snowboarder, a huge fan of music, and lists his greatest influences as SportsCenter, The New Yorker, Steve Zissou, Jon Caramanica, and Wikipedia. We asked Robby a few other questions about his career and his thoughts on the industry.

1) Why Mindshare?

For me it comes back to the basics of the business, while also looking ahead to the future. There are two broad components of Marketing: one, have something creative to say, and two, put that message in front of the right audience. It’s more crucial now than ever that brands bridge the gap between parts one and two of this equation, especially understanding the nuance around that second component of audience. No one is better set up to do this than Mindshare – understanding human behavior and helping brands navigate the rapidly evolving consumer and media landscapes on a global scale, meanwhile writing the future of advertising in the process.

2) What’s one consumer or media trend that you think marketers should pay more attention to?

Personalization. Most brands are sitting on an embarrassment of riches when it comes to anonymized user data – but they don’t know what to do with it. The future of media is the power of data and the persuasive art of storytelling coming together to give consumers a more tailored experience.

3) What inspired you to get into this field?

I’ve always been fascinated by brands. From a young age, I became loyal to brands that made me feel something. And I’m still loyal to a lot of those brands today. Professionally, I naturally gravitated toward the brand world and the intersection of brands and human behavior. Comms Planning sits squarely at that crossroads, and I’m still as obsessed with brands and people today as I’ve ever been.

4) Which emoji do you use the most?

• ???? Hallelujah hands ????
• (But my favorite is the nail polish emoji ???? ???? ????  When used correctly, there’s a certain level of gravitas that is otherwise unattainable with the written word.)