GENIUS STEALS IS A NOMADIC
STRATEGIC & CREATIVE CONSULTANCY

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/// We ignite innovative thinking in organizations worldwide ///

Co-founders Faris and Rosie give keynote talks and emcee events, host bespoke workshops, provide strategy and positioning, and work with agencies and brands to help keep them relevant in today’s digitally-enabled world.

 

It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions. 

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway for 9 (!!) years and counting, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based in Washington state, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

If you want to know where we are, or where we'll be, your best bet is to subscribe to our newsletter, Strands of Genius, or to check out our public-facing calendar

 
 
 
 

THE FOUNDERS

 
Working Hard or Hardly Working

FARIS YAKob, co-founder 

Faris began his career as a strategy consultant for digital businesses during the first dot com explosion. He moved into the agency world, eventually joining Naked Communications as their 20th employee. Faris worked for Naked in London, Sydney and New York, during their heyday, as a communication strategist and later as global head of digital. 

Faris went on to be EVP Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson NYC, tasked with ushering in their digital transformation, which led to them wining their first ever Cyber Lion at Cannes. Subsequently he was appointed Chief Innovation Officer of MDC Partners, a network of best in breed agencies, including CPB, Anomaly, 72 & Sunny and kbs+.

Deployed within kbs+, he established a social team and developed the social products and services, helped start the content team, and co-founded creative technology boutique Spies&Assassins.

Faris was a founding member of the IPA Social Committee, is on the global advisory board of Social Media Week, and has judged numerous award shows, including the social category for the Effies. He helped the London International Awards to create and define the NEW category to reflect and highlight innovation in the industry. He has been blogging and involved in the ongoing discussions around social in the industry for almost a decade.

He has written about social media and marketing for Campaign, Fast Company, Forbes, Contagious, Canvas8 and Age of Conversation books. He has spoken on social, digital and innovative marketing all over the world and his thesis on the future of brands won the inaugural IPA President’s Prize. 

Faris is the author of Paid Attention, with the second edition released in 2022. He also co-authored The Digital State: How The Internet is Changing Everything [Kogan Page], Eat Your Greens, Creative Superpowers, and What Is A 21st Century Brand.

He speaks about his work at conferences and corporate events around the world.  
                                                 

ROSIE YAKOB, co-founder 

Rosie began her career working with hip hop moguls Jay-Z and Steve Stoute at their entertainment branding company, developing non-traditional ways for brand like Altoids, Target, Wrigley and Samsung to connect with their fans. She joined Cake Group’s newly founded New York office in 2009 where she launched Motorola’s global social media presence and helped brands like Havaianas, Sears and Oppenheimer navigate the world of social and digital media.

In early 2011, Rosie joined Saatchi & Saatchi’s New York office to lead social and emerging media, advising brands including P&G’s Pampers & Olay and General Mills’ Cheerios amongst others. She helped the agency to develop a point of view on social, guiding their own social media presence as well as their internal structure and setup for future projects.

Before co-founding Genius Steals with Faris, Rosie was at 360i, an award-winning digital marketing agency, named by Fast Company as one of the world’s most innovative companies. There she and her team helped brands like Bravo, Dentyne, NBCU and Oreo navigate the world of social and emerging media from creative ideation through to activation.

This included being the lead strategist on the Cannes Grand Prix and Facebook Best in Show winning Oreo Daily Twist campaign, where she developed the strategy and interagency process necessary to deliver fresh creative content every day for 100 days and to ‘win the superbowl’ with the blackout tweet that birthed ‘Real Time Marketing.’

Rosie has written for publications including Fast Company, Digiday & SocialFresh and her presentations on social have been featured on the front page of Slideshare. She is passionate about moving the industry forward and has served on the London International Awards NEW jury, the Jay Chiat Social Media jury, the CLIOs Shadow Jury, and taught at Miami Ad School in addition to speaking at conferences around the world. She believes that brands can create and curate culture, and connect to people in ways that create value for both.


We believe collaboration is the only way to solve problems, and our travels have connected us with some of the most interesting minds out there.

We're always looking for thinkers, doers and people who like to tinker, especially when it comes to brands and how they interact with the world.

HERE'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO…

CO-FOUNDER FARIS YAKOB KEEPS THE INDUSTRY INFORMED WITH HIS MONTHLY COLUMN FOR WARC (WORLD ADVERTISING RESEARCH COMPANY)

For two people nomadic by nature, the LOCKDOWN Was especially tough. But one silver lining? Collaborating with Dolly Parton and Tim McGraw to bring a message of positivity to Nashville.

A Genius/Steals x Em.co Production Directed by Cal & Aly Executive Producers: Scott Siman & Rosie Siman Yakob Production Manager: Ashley Derrington Written by Matt Burch Audio editing by Paul Devincenzo Voiceover by Dolly Parton Humble and Kind recorded by Tim McGraw Humble and Kind written by Lori McKenna Special thanks to everyone at Music City, Channel 5, Hemphill Brothers Coach, Nissan Stadium, The Ryman, Sound Emporium, & Terry Wyatt for making this video possible.

We were asked to contribute to a piece to the Economic Times of India about the future of agencies. Above is the print copy (newspapers *aren't* dead) but you can also read it online by visiting: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news…

We were asked to contribute to a piece to the Economic Times of India about the future of agencies. Above is the print copy (newspapers *aren't* dead) but you can also read it online by visiting: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/advertising/the-future-is-here-its-just-not-evenly-distributed/65127843

We returned to the WARC webinar stage for a two-part series on agency planning. 

This time around, we offered a bird's-eye view of the advertising industry and the perspective we have gained around frameworks that great agencies use to inform their thinking, briefs, and presentations. 

In part two, we covered behaviors and biases. After all behavior is at the heart of what we do. Planning products like consumer journeys and comms architectures help us explore and organize behavior. But it's important to remember that we're ripe with biases, so we've shared what we see from around the world - on the agency, brand, & client side - and how to work with them and around them.

most briefs out there are really. f*cking. boring.

Turns out 1500 people agreed. One of our most popular workshop requests is to help agencies and brands with their creative and briefing process. So when Warc hired us to deliver a webinar, we decided to share some of the more general learnings we've had over the years. We didn't anticipate just how popular it would be, but now we're making our deck public so you can steal our thinking. (Yes, really.) More details on how to download it here: http://geniussteals.co/briefs

"Faris Yakob and Rosie Siman, a husband-and-wife team are the founders of Genius Steals, an international strategy and innovation consultancy. The agency help brands, agencies and people discover and identify new communication ideas, product concepts and find exciting ways of thinking, especially as they relate to technology. Both Faris - who was named one of the modern Mad Men by Fast Company - and Rosie believe advertising can and should be a positive force in the world." Watch the full interview here.

FARIS WAS FEATURED AS THE CREATIVITY CORRESPONDENT FOR FAST COMPANY & MARRIOTT'S BRANDED CONTENT SERIES #TRAVELBRILLIANTLY.

FARIS WAS FEATURED AS THE CREATIVITY CORRESPONDENT FOR FAST COMPANY & MARRIOTT'S BRANDED CONTENT SERIES #TRAVELBRILLIANTLY.

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BMW Launches Their First Electric Vehicle

"Wherever You Want To Go" is a web-based film series presented by BMW Documentaries. The project won GOLD in the Integrated Category of the Art Director's Club Awards and SILVER in the London International Awards' New Category.

Fast Company named Faris as one of the Modern Day Mad Men back in 2010. Funny enough, he's never watched even an episode of the show.

Fast Company named Faris as one of the Modern Day Mad Men back in 2010. Funny enough, he's never watched even an episode of the show.

FARIS WROTE THE 1ST CHAPTER, "DIGITAL CURRENTS, INVISIBLE FUTURES" OF THIS BOOK.

FARIS WROTE THE 1ST CHAPTER, "DIGITAL CURRENTS, INVISIBLE FUTURES" OF THIS BOOK.

Yahoo Featured Faris as one of their selected Futurists. Here's what he had to say:


Faris won the IPA Excellence Diploma President’s Prize for his paper on the future of brands. It’s called I Believe the Children are the Future. You can download it here.

Oreo's Daily Twist

Oreo had a big birthday to celebrate -- its 100th, in fact.

To commemorate the milestone we set out to prove that a century old, Oreo was still as relevant as ever. The campaign was a testament of collaboration, a multi-agency effort including 360i, Draftfcb, MediaVest & WeberShandwick. While Rosie was at 360i, she developed the strategy and inter-agency process necessary to deliver fresh creative content every day for 100 days and to ‘win the SuperBowl’ with the blackout tweet that birthed Real Time Marketing. 

The Daily Twist campaign won industry awards from 12 different awards shows, including the Cannes Lion Cyber Grand Prix, and was featured in more than 2,600 articles from media outlets around the world.

See all the Daily Twists here.

FARIS PRESENTS A CASE FOR GETTING GOOD AT GHOSTWRITING

FARIS PRESENTS A CASE FOR GETTING GOOD AT GHOSTWRITING

Seenapse is a new kind of search engine made for creatives. We're partners in this startup, based in Mexico City, which lets you think with other people's heads.

Seenapse is a new kind of search engine made for creatives. We're partners in this startup, based in Mexico City, which lets you think with other people's heads.

Back in 2012, Rosie gave this talk Year of the People?, at the Halifax Pop Explosion Conference. Still relevant today? Absolutely.