Fabien
Pons
20 years in advertising. 12 in beauty and premium consumer brands. Agency and in-house, across Paris, New York and London.
Not how do you adapt a campaign. How do you read a culture, understand what matters inside it, and build something that resonates there as if it grew there naturally.
In New York I absorbed the cultural DNA of the city so Maybelline could belong there. At Garnier I inverted the problem: a French brand made locally resonant across 130 markets, from Brazil to South Korea. With Tinder I worked upstream, diagnosing cultural drift before the strategy caught up. Two years before the brand's own reset.
I work at the intersection of cultural intelligence, creative direction and brand strategy. I present confidently at C-suite level and build the kind of client relationships that survive disagreement.
When Creativity operates upstream,
it doesn't decorate Strategy.
It predicts it.
For founders and leaders who feel the gap between what their organisation truly is and what it projects.
Independent creative and strategic practice. Cultural intelligence, brand identity and creative direction for consumer brands navigating disruption. Developed the WMUH Framework: a structured diagnostic for brands losing cultural coherence.
Three-phase engagement: cultural and psychological diagnosis identifying Gen Z's drift away from the brand's meaning, creative translation into new storytelling and visual language, realised in the UK campaign It Starts With a Swipe. Two years later, Tinder's new CEO publicly repositioned the brand on that exact territory.
Read the full case study →Transformed a production studio into a strategic creative agency. Rebuilt creative culture, repositioned the offer, led new business. Creative direction on Adobe US, L'Oréal, Mondelez, Filorga.
Grand Frais (400 stores): 500+ assets per year across retail, digital, social and print. Led a team of 10 creatives and strategists.
Led the digital transformation of Garnier's creative model across 130 markets. Built a social-first creative framework translating global brand territories into locally resonant content market by market. 15 international campaigns per year. Team of 20+ creatives. Senior creative partner to L'Oréal leadership.
Built the in-house creative department from zero. Chrissy Teigen collaboration: number one selling face palette at Sephora US from launch. Glow Glossary: 400 million media impressions across product, retail, digital, experiential and social simultaneously.
Repositioned Maybelline's global brand identity around authenticity, diversity and New York culture. Built Maybelline's social brand book — not a style guide but a cultural map.
Integrated creative for Samsung, Microsoft and Sky. Samsung Life's a Photo: 79M reached, Cannes Lions shortlisted, Campaign Agency of the Year finalist 2012.
Digital and integrated advertising. Built and led a specialist digital creative team.
Co-founded a branding and strategic design studio. Clients: Cartier, Lancôme, Kérastase, Chaumet, Helena Rubinstein.
Let's have
a real conversation.
Not about my CV. About the problem you are trying to solve — and whether cultural intelligence is the missing piece.