Allen P. Adamson

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About Allen P. Adamson
Allen Adamson, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Metaforce
“The number one reason for organizational success or failure is the ability to stay relevant. Having the wherewithal to strategically shift ahead of accelerating marketplace changes is the single most critical skillset an organization can possess.”
Allen Adamson is a noted industry expert in all disciplines of branding. He has worked with a broad spectrum of consumer and corporate businesses in industries ranging from packaged goods and technology, to health care and financial services, to hospitality and entertainment. With his perspective and depth of experience, Allen has helped his clients understand and activate strategies that enable them to shift ahead of the market and the competition, generating long-term value and increased brand equity. Allen and his teams help clients identify what truly matters to the audiences they serve - what is relevant to their audiences - and to brilliantly deliver on it.
How organizations do – or do not - stay relevant is the subject of Allen’s most recent book, Shift Ahead. Using fascinating first-hand accounts and detailed case studies, Shift Ahead explains how the best organizations recognize when it’s time to change direction, and how they pull it off while bolstering their brands. Following the approach of Allen’s previous books, BrandSimple, BrandDigital, and The Edge:50 Tips from Brands That Lead – which are used in universities across the country - Shift Ahead offers up practical and readily applied lessons learned.
Allen is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Metaforce (www.metaforce.co), a disruptive marketing and product consultancy which, unlike traditional firms, takes a multi-disciplinary channel-agnostic approach to marketing challenges. It was created to help leaders understand all the forces at work inside and outside their businesses in order to identify strategies yielding the highest returns. Once determing the best strategy, Metaforce’s consortium of partners, each industry experts in their fields, pivot to help clients brilliantly act on and execute in market. Metaforce combines the best aspects of brand management, strategy, and experience consultancies to deliver solutions that ensure its clients shift ahead of the dramatic changes in the marketplace in order to meet fast-evolving customer needs.
Prior to this Allen was Chairman of Landor Associates, a global communications and brand strategy consultancy. Under his leadership, the company partnered with a wide array of iconic brands, including Accenture, GE, Johnson & Johnson, FedEx, HBO, Marriott, MetLife, P&G, Sony, and Verizon. Additionally, he provided guidance for non-profit organizations including the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, the Central Park Conservancy, and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others.
Before leading Landor, Allen worked on both the agency and the “client side” of the industry. At Unilever he was a marketing executive across a number of major packaged goods brands. He also held senior management positions at Ogilvy & Mather and DMB&B.
A sought-after industry commentator, Allen has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, CNBC’s Squawk Box and Closing Bell, and Fox Business Network. He is often quoted in publications including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, USA Today, the Washington Post, and Forbes, for which he also regularly writes a column on current branding topics. He is a frequent guest lecturer at New York University’s Stern School of Business, the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, and the Harvard School of Continuing Education. He is a member of the American Management Association and speaks on branding for a range of professional organizations, corporate events, and at industry conferences.
Allen received his BS from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Allen Adamson
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Metaforce
www.metaforce.co
212-929-0161
917-749-3611
Visit Shift Ahead: https://www.shiftaheadbook.com/
Author Adamson on ABC Nightline: https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/female-ceo-polarizing-sports-media-giant-barstool-sports/story?id=55919642
San Francisco Review of Books: http://www.sanfranciscoreviewofbooks.com/2018/01/book-review-shift-ahead-by-allen.html
Business Book Reviewer: https://businessbookreviewer.com/2019/02/04/review-shift-ahead/
Interview at AMA Quarterly: https://issuu.com/americanmanagementassociation/docs/ama-quarterly-fall-17?backgroundColor=%2523ffffff
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Titles By Allen P. Adamson
In the digital age, the old rules of marketing and branding are in desperate need of overhaul. Word of mouth has evolved to word of type as customers promote or deride products and services to a massive Internet audience at a moments notice. Any misstep away from the brand message becomes a catastrophe as companies are no longer afforded the luxury of tweaking their message as a commercial, ad, or story develops, resulting in damage control that not only costs the brand money, but also costs customer support, hurting a brand's image and integrity.
In The Edge, Allen Adamson examines how the leading brands of today maintain their dominance in the market utilizing the strategies put forth in his previous books BrandSimple and BrandDigital. Adamson succinctly accounts specific challenges facing the biggest brands of today, from major companies like Apple and General Mills to celebrity brands like Lady Gaga and Jay Z. He reveals the guiding principles employed to ensure the message stays focused, remains clear, and continues to drive a brand to the top of the market.