If you want to change the world…
you need the right people.
And not enough time.
We’re Faster/Forward: Brand and marketing specialists who help WORLD-CHANGING clients move their business forward.
We work with startups and established companies running fast into the future. We use a proprietary approach called BrandSpeed™ to help our clients figure out who they are and what to do next.
"We dove into our work with Faster/Forward before the ink was dry on the contract and within weeks had a plan. There wasn't a minute wasted. The final results came together beautifully and we continue to use the strategy today."
Anna Skaya - CEO, Basepaws
You don't need an agency. You need a team.
Led by Shane Ginsberg and Florian Radke, FASTER/FORWARD assembles seasoned talent for the job at hand. No overhead. No bloat. Just the right talent, for the right amount of time, for the greatest impact. We've spent decades running agencies and being the client. That model is broken. Modern brands need specialist skills and deep category expertise on-demand. We build teams of two to five around a brand's specific needs at a point in time.
Shane Ginsberg is a pioneering entrepreneur in the world of digital marketing, brand development and technology for some of the most impactful brands such as Pepsi, Microsoft, and Panda Express. He was a cofounder of iconic agency Razorfish and held leadership positions at AKQA, Organic, and EVB before starting FASTER/FORWARD. Shane spent ten years developing our proprietary BrandSpeed process and has run 85 of these projects for clients in the retail, tech, cannabis, food tech, and beverage industries.
Florian Radke is an award-winning marketing and brand communications expert with a focus on the future of food and DTC brands. As a digital native growth and marketing expert, Florian has helped Fortune 500 companies and start-ups to grow from the inside as the CMO and from the outside as a freelance consultant for brands such as Miyoko's Creamery, Alpha Foods, Wild Earth, Heineken, Unilever, and P&G.
"Florian and Shane understand the changing needs and realities of a fast-growing business, because they’ve been there. Their nimbleness and mix of experience, passion and purpose both at the in-house, agency and founder level shows. It’s easy when you are in the thick of the day (as they can attest) to lose sight of the wood for the trees. These fellas helped us move Faster Forward by cutting through the typical agency ordeal and big agency approach by making it super easy to engage and jumping in head first at the whiteboard."
Jim Allsopp - Chief Brand Officer, Miyoko’s Creamery
Pressure Makes Diamonds.
BrandSpeed™ is a proprietary battle-tested process designed to help companies differentiate themselves and unlock opportunities. Faster. It condenses three months of strategy and creative effort into a two week sprint. We’ve run BrandSpeeds for over 85 clients - each tailored to solve a specific problem.
Some problems we’ve solved using the process:
◆ Developing a coherent and compelling narrative
◆ Finding the next consumer
◆ Formulating a lean GTM strategy
◆ Cracking social marketing
◆ Building retail presence
◆ Getting DTC right
"Our team had a great time working with the Faster/Forward crew. We needed brand names and stories for two food innovation projects, one of which included packaging development. Through a fun and immersive experience, the team came up with at least five great names and stories for each project in just a few weeks. Other agencies we talked to pitched us 12 week engagements for at least twice the price. Not only did Faster/Forward deliver the trifecta – excellent work, at a great value, done quickly – they also nurtured our team’s creativity, and we smiled throughout the process. Several team members commented that the Faster/Forward brainstorming sessions were the best they had experienced in 20+ years in the food industry.
Great work should feel good to make, and it’s even better when your consumers and customers validate the output. Each final name did very well in quantitative consumer testing, and we successfully sold these products to one of the biggest retailers in the US with strong support from the category buyer. Working with Faster/Forward was a fantastic experience, and I’m confident everyone on our team would happily work with Shane and Florian again in the future."
Joe Christenson - Senior Brand Manager, Global Innovation, Post Consumer Brands
FASTER/FORWARD helps ambitious brands figure out who they are and what to do next. Our most recent partnerships include:
◆ Miyoko's Creamery
◆ Rebellyous Foods
◆ Betterland Foods
◆ Basepaws Pet Genetics
◆ Post Cereal
◆ Vegan Women Summit (VWS)
For Brands that matter.
We work with companies making a difference in the world. It's why we focus on food innovation, pet, and health industries. We have decades of experience shaping consumer habits and behaviors. And building hundreds of businesses around these changes.
"Two of the smartest people we’ve had the great fortune to work with. Shane and Florian are smart, humble, highly collaborative, not to mention fun to work with. When you want people who bring both strategy and creativity to digital, this is the team."
Austin McGhie - Co-founder at Find Difference, Author of BRAND is a four letter word: Positioning and The Real Art of Marketing and Find Your Difference: Challenging Conformity in Business and in Life.
THE Wild Earth Story:
We worked on this brand together as client and agency partners. Florian as the CMO of Wild Earth. Shane as President of EVB, the agency tasked with launching the brand into the world.
Wild Earth developed a product that no-one knew they needed: A plant-based sustainable dog food.
So we had to solve a daunting challenge: launch a brand new pet food into a crowded market and break the myth that “real dogs eat meat.”
We knew there was a fine line between highlighting the benefits of a plant based diet for your dog and coming across as preachy. So we focused the product positioning around the fact that "dogs need protein, not meat" and showed that Wild Earth is cleaner and better than any other dog food, with a launch commercial showing Wild Earth's CEO eating his own dog food.
The video was picked up by major news outlets such as CNN, ABC, and Fox News and created massive media buzz - turning Wild Earth into a one of a kind DTC success story and creating a brand new category of plant-based foods in the pet space.
The results: 25+ M in earned media, 25% m/m business growth.
Today, Wild Earth is the category leader in the clean-protein pet food space and secured investments from MARS Petcare, Peter Thiel, and Mark Cuban.
"After 14 successful years, heads down, we were stuck. We needed help getting unstuck. Faster/Forward delivered. After a BrandSpeed consultation, we were aligned and onboard for selling our services with confidence, authenticity and distinction thanks to Faster/Forward’s insight and their masterclass in messaging."
Robert Kennedy - CEO, Athlon
Our Services:
Undertaken in a month (or less.)
What we typically deliver: in a month or less.
◆ Brand Playbooks
◆ Identity and Collateral Systems
◆ Brand Narratives
◆ Sales Materials
◆ Websites
◆ GTM Plans
WHO YOU ARE:
◆ Consumer Research
◆ Brand Positioning
◆ Messaging
◆ Naming
◆ Brand Identity
◆ Packaging
WHat to do next:
◆ Communications Planning
◆ Digital Development
◆ Social Strategy
◆ DTC Enablement
◆ Growth Marketing
"In Shane and Florian, we found partners in both strategy and our mission. In mere weeks, they boiled down our complicated inputs and layered on great category insights to deliver a crisp brand execution. Our team is delighted that the personification of our brand now meets the aspirations we have for it. In the highly competitive food industry, they’re the teammates you want on your side of the food fight."
Kyleigh Turk-Polifko - Sr. Marketing Manager, Rebellyous Foods
