Increasingly, the world's strongest brands are being built at the intersection of code and culture. This convergence transcends building flashy apps or having your own branded content channel on YouTube—it's about bringing together the power of identity, interface, and intelligence to create meaningful value in every brand interaction.
By combining digital innovation with cultural insight, we help brands create experiences that give customers new abilities and new aspirations.
Drawing on three decades of strategy and innovation at world-renowned agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, JWT, and R/GA, founder and chief strategist Adrian Barrow created Catalyst with a clear purpose: to help brands compete and thrive in today's experience economy.
In this fast-moving marketplace, promising value isn't enough—brands must actively create it. While most agencies specialize in either digital transformation or cultural relevance, we combine both. From our Los Angeles headquarters, we form bespoke teams of consultants, technologists, and culturalists to energize brands—finding non-obvious strategies to unlock growth when overworn paths have led nowhere.
We don't just communicate—we create tangible value through experiences that matter.
We position brands to shape the future by amplifying cultural meaning and providing engaging experiences.
We design dynamic interfaces between companies and customers that can evolve and adapt.
We embed smart technologies to make your brands genuinely more valuable in people's lives.
We respect the legacy of your brand while pushing its boundaries.
We uncover transformative opportunities by analyzing digital signals and cultural currents:
Customer journeys
Cultural archaeology
Brand architecture
Digital ecosystems
We craft experiences that leverage both technology and cultural resonance:
Brand world-building
Experience design
Service innovation
Membership models
We bring bold ideas to life through digital innovation and cultural creation:
Experience prototyping
Platform development
Content systems
Community building
We help teams champion change by bridging digital and cultural understanding:
Innovation workshops
Leadership alignment
Change management
Cultural navigation
Our main goal is to help brands unleash their full potential through brand innovation. With this in mind, we can either serve as a strategic energizer for your existing team or we can form a custom team outside of your organization.The types of projects we get really excited about include:
Where technology amplifies cultural meaning to create category-defining experiences
Where code and culture converge to build deeper customer connections
Where digital technologies enable cultural resonance at scale
Where technological possibility meets cultural opportunity
As someone who earns a living from the dark art of brand strategy, I am professionally fascinated by products that challenge conventional wisdom about brand building...
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Read moreLet's spark a conversation about how your brand can be more valuable in your customers’ lives.
adrian@catalyst-strategy.com
Los Angeles, CA
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