Laurence Hardy

Rest in power, king 👑

Some brands launch products. The smartest brands launch movements.

David Protein built a brand playbook worth studying:

• They started with an unassailable value prop: you can’t beat our numbers.
• They branded around simplicity and art: trucks in NYC that looked like moving billboards for nutrition data.
• They used TikTok Shop as rocket fuel for adoption.
• And then—they layered in a world-class creative director, Sara Rados; someone who could take a launch and make it feel like cultural marketing.

That sequencing — truth → channel dominance → distribution → creative leadership — is why they’ve become a viral success story.

The lesson for creative leaders: if your product is strong but your brand isn’t scaling, you don’t need another ad. You need a creative leader who can translate product truth into culture.

This is what design at the executive level unlocks.

👉 Curious to hear from other brand leaders: which new brands have impressed you most with their creative strategy?

I’m not pro-AI or anti-AI. I’m both thrilled by its potential and worried about its costs.

The internet debates? Exhausting. Some act like typing into ChatGPT once is moral treason. Others want to automate every aspect of life. I fall somewhere in between.

Generative AI is a tool — probably overhyped, definitely disruptive. Use it if it helps you create better work. Ignore it if you prefer. Just make sure the output is yours. Creativity is still human.

But let’s not ignore the dark side:
•Many LLMs were trained on scraped, copyrighted art. That’s stolen work.
•Data centers powering AI are CPU-hungry, polluting, and often short-cutting sustainability.

AI can increase business and personal leverage — but at what cost? Artists deserve choice and compensation. Data centers should offset emissions. Companies must be accountable.

Organizations like Partnership on AI are already pushing for fairness, transparency, and ethical AI. Supporting this work is critical.

If your creative team is thinking about AI ethics, let’s talk. I’ve been exploring these issues since generative AI went mainstream, and I’d love to share insights.