5 Minutes with... Kelleen Peckham

Kelleen Peckham is the director of brand strategy at creative agency Duncan Channon, headquartered in San Francisco. Though a native of the East Bay herself, Kelleen says that a catalyst for her career in strategy occurred while studying at an international school in Basel, Switzerland.

Those four years of her adolescence ‘opened her eyes to many different perspectives and traditions’, sparking a passion for language, culture and sociology. Kelleen loves to analyse the reasons behind people’s actions and enjoys becoming an expert with new brands in new categories, leading to work for the likes of Acura, Intuit, Wells Fargo, Ocean Spray and the CDC. While at Arnold in Boston, she also wrote the strategy for the Effie-winning teen tobacco prevention ad campaign called, ‘truth’. 

LBB’s Ben Conway caught up with Kelleen to discover how she’s shaped her department to support every discipline within the agency, the combination of tools she uses to stay up-to-date with culture, and why she views strategy as the first runner in a relay race.

LBB> How did your time at a Swiss international school spark your anthropological interests, and influence you more widely? 

Kelleen> It made me realise that our values (and behaviours) are largely shaped by the culture we grow up in. To give a very basic example, let’s consider common conversations between shoppers and retail workers. In the San Francisco East Bay, saying hello and exchanging simple greetings always results in a very positive interaction. ‘How are things going today?’ was followed by, ‘Good thanks, and you?’. Then back: ‘Great, thanks!’ or ‘Can’t complain, the sun is shining’. Whereas in Switzerland, these interactions are often nonexistent, or the response is much more honest and less positive: ‘I haven’t had a break all morning’ or ‘I’m fine’. 

This difference, I learned later on, wasn’t just my experience. It had been studied by Pew Research and others. They found that the centrality of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ in American life actually translates into more positive views of self and personal control, which creates that optimism. Add to that the good weather we’re fortunate to have in California, and you’ve got one rosy conversation starter.

LBB> When did the possibility of working in strategy appeal to you? What led to you becoming a planner at RPA?

Kelleen> A few months before wrapping up my undergraduate degree, I began seriously considering what I was going to do next. I had studied languages (French and German) and, by consequence, the cultures surrounding those languages. I didn’t want to become a teacher or a translator, so I went to the career office for help. There I found a flyer for an advertising career day. I signed up and joined a group of students in LA visiting two different agencies in the area. I was lucky that RPA was one of those agencies, and that their strategic planning team gave a presentation on brand strategy. Instantly, I knew this was the job I wanted. 

I could envision leveraging my interest in culture, people and why they do what they do to craft advertising strategies that would resonate. From there, I began applying for brand strategy positions and after a short stint as the receptionist at Davis Elen Advertising, I landed my first strategy job at RPA as the strategic planning department assistant. I spent the next four years learning from several great strategy leaders. 

LBB> What’s the most important piece of advice you received early on in your career? How does it influence you and your work today?

Kelleen> After about a year of being a junior strategist, I remember my boss telling me in my review, ‘Speak up when you have ideas. Your ideas are good’. As a woman and as someone who grew up always letting others speak first, this simple encouragement helped me find my voice in advertising. I started by speaking up more in internal meetings and after that went well, I spoke up more in client meetings. Today, I find I have to tell myself to pause before I speak to give others a chance! But I still hold this advice near to my heart and am sure to share it with other junior strategists in need of support and validation. 

LBB> As director of brand strategy, what does your average day-to-day look like? Are there any responsibilities that might surprise people? 

Kelleen> My day-to-day typically consists of meetings across multiple (four-plus) brands every day. As the department lead, I sit across all of our accounts and am usually jumping from beer to anti-tobacco to milk to healthcare on a daily basis. I colour code all my meetings to keep things organised. I love the variety my work brings me and often find there are unexpected connections between it all. 

Something you might not expect I’d be doing every day is project management. As the department director, it is also my responsibility to manage the workload of every member of my strategy team so I’m constantly thinking about who is doing what and when and what’s next for them. 

LBB> How has this role changed in your eight years at Duncan Channon?

Kelleen> When I started, there was only one other part-time strategist, and today we’re a team of five full-time strategists. I found that the more I was able to demonstrate the value of brand strategy, the more work there was to do, and this helped unlock the ability to hire more team members. Another distinct shift I’ve witnessed over the past four years is the change to conducting qualitative consumer research remotely instead of in-person. 

LBB> How have you shaped the strategy department to your vision? What are some of your key strategy philosophies that have influenced how the department looks today? 

Kelleen> One of the main ways I’ve shaped the strategy department is with my orientation of strategy work being in support of all other disciplines at the agency. I view strategy as the first runner in a relay race, rather than a solo event. We set the pace and direction but everything we do is ultimately to help the next person be successful. 

In my years prior to joining Duncan Channon, I’d witnessed strategy existing in a silo, or simply not being open to creative and/or account influencing their ideas, and I saw that approach fail. Strategy would ultimately go unused and the creative would do their own thing. Instead, I encourage everyone on my team to share early and often with their core team, especially their creative director and account lead. It's often in these team check-ins that we land our ultimate strategic unlock. And when we do it together, the strategic idea is actually used and carried through from creative to media and to production. 

LBB> You have experience with tobacco control/prevention organisations – both at your current company and with Arnold, where you won an Effie for ‘truth’. How do you approach health and PSA-related branding from a strategic perspective? 

Kelleen> Brand plays a very crucial role in public health messaging, though it’s different from the role it typically plays for companies selling goods and services to consumers. In public health, the purpose of the brand is to create a preferred information source; the message people see as truth and the place they go to for reliable information and guidance. In a sea of misinformation and influencers, this is absolutely crucial. 

We don’t just want people to recall that vaping is deadly for example, we want them to trust the California Public Health brand behind this message, UNDO. If they trust the brand, they’ll see the information as truth and not be persuaded differently when they see a post in social media from an influencer who shares a different opinion. 

LBB> You’ve also worked with Anheuser-Busch’s Kona beer – what opportunities do you enjoy about finding breakthrough strategy for new and emerging brands?

Kelleen> I am always energised, especially for new and emerging brands looking for significant growth in awareness, by the opportunity to uncover an insight that leads to breakthrough strategy. Figuring out that thing about an audience that’s going to get them to lean in and listen and remember the message is both challenging and rewarding. It’s the ultimate goal in strategy. 

All the work that goes into identifying that is dynamic, chaotic and mind-expanding. We get to talk to people about all kinds of things, observe humans in their natural environments, pour into studies about human behaviour and perceptions. And then we get to throw it all up onto a wall, organise it, reorganise and spot the thing amongst all of it that actually matters and makes it into our creative brief. 

LBB> How do you keep yourself fresh and abreast of developments in your field? Where do you find cultural and consumer insights today? Are the likes of TikTok and other social media relied on too heavily?

Kelleen> There is no one way to keep up and everyone has the method they lean into the most. For some that is TikTok, but for me personally, it’s the combination of many things that help me identify insights. It’s multiple observations from different places that start to add up to something greater and more interesting. A parent makes a comment at school drop off, then a stat comes up in a podcast I’m listening to, then I’m served an influencer video on Instagram and bam, I see a trend. 

Staying abreast of the cultural trends really requires a combination of so many things: reading up on trade news, paying attention to advertising happening in your world, being on social media, doom scrolling on TikTok, listening to podcasts, attending conferences (on occasion) and probably most important, living life in the present. Talking with other people, asking them what they’re noticing and experiencing. This could be coworkers of friends or family. And also just observing people while out and about at the grocery store, on a run or at school drop off. You never know where the beginning of your next insight is going to pop up. 

LBB> Looking at the broader industry, what gets you really excited and what frustrates you? What could the industry be doing better?

Kelleen> In advertising, there is a constant hunt for new ideas. They’re critical to our success as marketers, so they are always in demand. The process of identifying them and then making them tangible is hard creative work which I find rewarding. What I find most frustrating is needing to constantly pitch new work to ensure we have jobs in 6-12 months, while also trying to give our best thinking to the current project at hand – although we always prevail. 

LBB> Outside of work, what do you do to decompress or stay fresh? Are you still brewing beer?

Kelleen> Funny enough, my husband and I are looking to sell all of our beer-making supplies after a good 15 years. Anyone interested? I’ll make you a great deal! The truth is we both work full time, we’ve got two kids, a home and yard and we’re heavily involved in our second grader’s elementary school PTA. So we’re operating at a time deficit. On those odd weekend afternoons where we don’t have a birthday party or soccer game or school festival to be at, we go for a long walk along the shoreline. The gentle lapping of the bay water and the wind rustling in the trees always brings me peace and calm.