Jen Hays
LOS ANGELES • WORKING ACROSS THE US
I come in for the idea, run the team that builds it, and stay in the work through the end. Agency and brand-side both: Droga5, AKQA, Saatchi & Saatchi, and BASIC/DEPT, plus in-house at Apple, Airbnb, and YINA.
SELECT BRANDS
Apple · Prudential · Google · Levi's · Samsung · BetMGM · lululemon · Airbnb · Verizon · T-Mobile · Cricket Wireless · Under Armour · Puma · Target · Starbucks · Sandals Resorts · KFC · Chobani · Frito-Lay · Kraft · UBS · YouTube · Wild Turkey
AWARDS
Cannes Lions · D&AD · Effie · One Show · Andy · Webby’s · Anthem
Full List —>
The category competes on sign-up bonuses. We showed up with Vegas.
LULULEMON • LEGGINGS 101
Leggings for running, for yoga, and for sitting on the couch intending to do either.
APPLE PAY
Tap. Pay. Gift. The hardest part was already a habit.
Female athlete. Female director. Female CEO. I built the social activation that asked 110 countries to drop the qualifier.
LEVI’S • STYLE + SUSTAINABILITY
Everyone had a sustainability story. Ours had to stop the thumb and sell the jeans.
DANIEL’S MUSIC FOUNDATION
I made accessibility and joy the same brief.
I gave retirement advice a behavioral science makeover. John Oliver noticed.
SILVER OAK
The scope didn't fit. The shoot didn't cooperate. The wine never noticed.
LEVI’S • #VOTEABOUTIT
We put Levi's in the middle of an election without putting it on a side.
I turned "you have to get this" into something you could have before the video ended.
The fans wrote the ads. They thought they were writing App Store reviews.
YINA
The products weren't the problem. The language was.
VERIZON • INNOVATIVE LEARNING HQ
New classroom tech usually ends up on a shelf. I built the hub that kept it off one.
CRICKET WIRELESS
I turned brand mascots into actors, and the client bought twice the spots.
MORE WORK
Airbnb, Hello Stranger
The idea had no funding and no team. The deck I built got it both.
Metro by T-Mobile
Two agencies, two languages, one campaign. I built the process that held it together.
ABOUT
I came up through art direction and never left the craft behind. Eighteen years across Droga5, AKQA, Saatchi & Saatchi, and BASIC/DEPT, plus in-house at Apple, Airbnb, and YINA.
Lately I've been brought in by agencies for the part of the job that happens before anything is public: new business pitches, brand strategy, platform development, and the creative direction that follows once an account is won.
More about me —>
Also: I co-founded The Broad Exchange in 2009, a 501(c)(3) that started as dinner circles and grew to a 3,000-member network of women and gender-diverse creatives, early career to C-suite.
And: AI sits inside how I concept, research, and produce. It moves things faster. It doesn't get to decide anything.