Adrian Samuel · Melbourne

Plans it. Brands it. Builds it.

Five years across two global media agencies, a publisher, a fintech CMO seat and now an ASX-listed lender, with a studio of my own alongside. Each chapter compounds into the next: planning, selling, owning, building.

$30M+

Investment planning exposure

Years, agency to client side

Brands built and shipped

The story

Six chapters, in order.

A 30-second scroll gives you the shape. Three minutes gives you the campaigns and the numbers behind them.

2021-22

Spinach Advertising

Chapter 01 · First campaigns

Media analyst, learning on live budgets

Part-time and hands-on from the start: digital reporting, pacing and post-campaign reviews across paid social and search, with weekly readouts for internal and client stakeholders.

The two results that mattered: A/B creative testing for Black Swan Dips lifted click-through 19% and in-store sales 14% across national grocers in six weeks, and rebuilt keyword targeting and scheduling for Drummond Golf lifted return on ad spend 28% quarter on quarter.

19%

CTR uplift, Black Swan Dips

14%

In-store sales lift, national grocers

28%

ROAS lift QoQ, Drummond Golf

2022-24

Initiative
IPG Mediabrands

Chapter 02 · The trading floor

Investment, associate to senior executive

Two promotions in two years. It started in local area marketing: planning and operations lead across roughly 400 retail locations and $1M+ in annual spend, 10+ campaigns shipped in the first five months, and a hand in Initiative's first perfect 9.0 TRR score on LAM.

Then trade lead on Specsavers: $11.5M in planned media, the Black Friday 2023 campaign that delivered the highest monthly revenue in company history, and the largest annual out-of-home plan the account had run, unlocking over $1M in bonus activity. The client's agency-performance score climbed from 7 to 8.5.

$11.5M

Planned media, Specsavers trade lead

7 to 8.5

TRR, the client's agency score

~400

Retail locations, LAM lead

$1M+

Bonus OOH activity unlocked

2024-25

EssenceMediacom
WPP

Chapter 03 · The FMCG year

Planning manager on the Mars portfolio

Devised and executed the integrated FY25 strategy for Mars Wrigley: $20M+ in planned investment against a 7.5% year-on-year net-sales-value uplift target, with a further $10M+ of Mars Petcare plans refined alongside it.

Agency-side lead on Whiskas Pocket Dial with Uber Ads, a breakthrough commerce-media activation. Led Milwaukee's first-ever brand campaign into market, roughly $2M omnichannel. Built the performance and competitive dashboards used across Mars, Adidas, Deakin and Milwaukee to inform senior decisions.

$20M+

Mars Wrigley FY25 strategy

7.5%

NSV uplift target planned against

$10M+

Mars Petcare plans refined

~$2M

Milwaukee's first brand campaign

2025

News Corp Australia

Chapter 04 · The publisher side

Client strategy manager, the other side of the table

Publisher-side partnerships: translating agency planning needs into responses that win, rather than inventory-first pitches. Built the automotive category go-to-market strategy designed to unlock $500K+ in incremental quarterly revenue, and the agency-facing insight packs that unlocked roughly $200K beyond business as usual.

Supported 6+ integrated partnership responses worth $1M+ in total, coordinating product, insights and sales teams, at a win rate around 70%.

~70%

Win rate on integrated responses

$1M+

Total response value supported

$500K+

Automotive GTM revenue target

~$200K

Unlocked via insight packs

2024-now

inaam · concurrent

Chapter 05 · The client side

Chief marketing officer, built from zero

An early-stage impact-investing fintech, and the whole marketing function stood up from nothing: ICP and segmentation, the value proposition, the Money With a Mission brand platform, channel mix, content system, CRM architecture and the measurement framework tying brand, product and growth together.

A partner program grown from zero to a pipeline of 100+ impact-aligned brands, 45+ of them in active conversation. Launched with no paid media. And the private engine behind it all, inaam-ops, producing the decks, emails, landing pages and dashboards.

100+

Impact-partner pipeline

45+

Partners in active conversation

Paid media at launch

2026-now

yaaarn

Chapter 06 · The studio

Founder, strategy and technology lead at yaaarn

yaaarn is a four-person brand studio built around a delivery engine rather than a slide library: a video rig with a quality gate that can reject work, a content studio, a website builder, and a private ops dashboard for every client. I own the strategy, the pricing and the build phase.

Two client brands ship through it: Helado's social and site, and Lydian's whole brand world. Both are in the builds below.

People in the studio

Client brands shipping through it

2026-now

Latitude Financial

Chapter 07 · Inside the lender

Marketing manager, contract, at Latitude

Client-side inside an ASX-listed lender. Worked on the Interest Free web journey redesign, restructuring scattered pages into a clearer path that moves customers into consideration.

And stood up a live acquisition dashboard consolidating Datorama, Power BI and planning workbooks across six products, with automated gap diagnostics, pacing and trend tracking replacing manual monthly reporting.

Products of reporting consolidated

Live acquisition dashboard

The builds

What the story leaves behind.

Five properties, all live right now. Every link below opens the real thing.

yaaarn poster: a thread unravelling into film, layouts and paint

yaaarn · Founder

A four-person brand studio, and the software that runs it.

Founded March 2026. I lead strategy and technology; Helado and Lydian ship through the studio daily.

The video rig: brief to storyboard to render to stitch, with a quality gate that can reject frames before a human reviews them.
The content studio: turns verified client facts into on-brand emails, decks and pages.
The website builder: brand sites composed and rendered live.
Client dashboards: a private ops view per client: registries, spend gates, approvals, analytics.

yaaarn.com ↗The yaaarn world

inaam poster: Money with a Mission, the impact investing platform

inaam · Chief marketing officer

A fintech's entire marketing function, built from zero.

An impact-investing app for young Australians, launched with no paid media. CMO since late 2024.

The brand platform: Money With a Mission: positioning, segmentation, voice.
The website: a trust engine, a content destination and a conversion path in one.
Growth systems: CRM architecture, the measurement framework, a 100+ impact-partner pipeline.
inaam-ops: the private engine producing the decks, emails, landing pages and dashboards.

inaam.me ↗

Helado poster: Muscle Memory Vol I, the protein ice cream fridge with the no sad scoops lockup

Helado · Client, through yaaarn

Social content and strategy for a protein ice cream brand.

Launch support first, an ongoing retainer now: concept-led creative shipping daily.

The concepts: Muscle Memory, No Sad Scoops, Protein Came Home.
The production system: daily posts through the studio pipeline, always on real cup photography.
Quality in code: automated label checks and spend caps protect the product on every image.

helado.com.au ↗

Lydian editorial cover: the bronze lion, private office

Lydian · Client, through yaaarn

A full brand world for a private office.

Navy and gold editorial calm for private banking, lending and intergenerational wealth.

The site: the editorial brand surface, live.
The brand system: the type, palette and voice behind every page.
The client's own tool: a content studio that writes on-brand founder emails from a verified fact base.

Lydian, live ↗

Latitude poster: the Interest Free journey as a glass panel floating in blue

Latitude · Marketing manager, contract

The Interest Free journey, rebuilt end to end.

Inside an ASX-listed consumer lender since April 2026.

The IF journey: scattered pages restructured into one clear path into consideration, built as a working prototype.
The reporting engine: Datorama, Power BI and planning workbooks consolidated into one live acquisition dashboard across six products.
Ways of working: supported the media agency transition and faster creative review with legal and compliance.

The IF prototype ↗

Contact

The resume is one page. The story reads better.

If any chapter is worth a conversation, I am easy to reach.

the.adriansamuel@gmail.com LinkedIn ↗ Resume