Independent brand & digital studio, Austin TX, Est. 2010

Most agencies
make brands.
We make
arguments.

Work for WPP, Dell, Microsoft, Cisco, Rutgers, Singtel

Brand, platform, and growth work for companies in transition. Delivered by a senior team who spent their careers at the world's largest networks.

1983First online
15+Years independent
F50Clients
ADDYAward winning
WPP Digital Acceleration Training Game-based learning platform, 111 countries
Selected work
Selected work, 2010 to present Hover to reveal, click to open
01 WPP
WPP Digital Acceleration Training

A parallel world for learning

02 EasyRaise
EasyRaise

Built from nothing

03 Equealth
Equealth

Repositioned around what physicians actually trust

04 VMware
VMware / WPP BLUE

Making an invisible technology feel essential

05 DDM
Digital Doesn't Matter

The book on digital strategy, written before the category existed

Case 05 / 06 · Healthcare & Pharma · Brand Strategy

A specialty pharmacy with 27 years of expertise, and a brand that spoke to no one

A leading compounding pharmacy operating in a category where most competitors sound clinical, transactional, and interchangeable. The opportunity was unambiguous: no one owned the patient-focused, caring, personalized positioning. That space was unclaimed. Our job was to claim it, and build the entire brand architecture to defend it.

We conducted competitive research across the full category, built a complete positioning platform, developed a 16-trait brand character organized into four pillars, defined the brand essence, and delivered a strategic brand framework spanning identity through activation.

Research Competitive Audit Positioning Brand Architecture 16-Trait Character System
Work like this →
The strategic thinking
Competitive finding

“Neither Diplomat nor Avella owns a strong patient-focused, caring message. That space is unclaimed, and it belongs to them.”

Brand essence

“Caring, passionate problem-solvers devoted to superior medical outcomes.”

Positioning principle

“Built around a culture of kindness: we make a difference by truly listening to specialized needs and helping patients get better faster.”

Brand character, four pillars, 16 traits
Spirit
Caring · Understanding · Conscientious · Thoughtful
Expertise
Professional · Seasoned · Innovative · Meticulous
Commitment
Passionate · Determined · Industrious · Focused
Service
Supportive · Resourceful · Adaptable · Sympathetic
Competitive positioning map
Personalized Better Health Clinical Transactional
Diplomat
Avella
Walgreens
CVS
Best opportunity

The map confirmed what the research suggested: the upper-left quadrant was entirely unoccupied. Patient-focused, better-health positioning with genuine personalization. The entire brand strategy was built to own it.

MicrosoftDell CiscoRutgers Blue ShieldSingtel
01 CGV
CGV / Coca-Cola

A cross-brand journey through the cinema experience

02 Venturem
Venturem

Named to signal precision in a field of clichés

03 REX
The Research Exchange

A virtual research community built before the category had a name

04 Backwoods
Backwoods

Style guides for a brand with genuine outdoor soul

05 Chabad
Chabad Venice

A cultural travel platform for historic Jewish Venice

Case Study Discuss this
What we believe
Most brand problems
are communication problems wearing a disguise.

We have spent 15 years at the point where strategy and execution either connect or collapse. Most agencies build a wall between them. Strategists hand off to creatives, who hand off to production, who deliver something the client then has to explain to their own audience. At Heresy, the person who builds your brand strategy is the same person who ensures it survives contact with your audience.

“We left to build something where the quality of the thinking could actually show up in the work.”

What we do

Six disciplines. One senior team, doing the work themselves.

01 Brand Strategy +

Positioning, voice, naming, and architecture that gives your brand something genuinely true to stand on.

PositioningNamingBrand VoiceArchitectureCompetitive Analysis
02 Identity Design +

Visual identity systems built to work at every scale, from a brand's first touchpoint to its thousandth.

Visual IdentityLogo SystemsTypographyColourCollateral
03 Digital Experience +

Websites, apps, and platforms designed and built by the same team who understands the brand.

Web DesignUX/UIApp DesignPlatform Build
04 Creative Direction +

Art direction, concept development, and campaign architecture that makes your brand story impossible to scroll past.

Art DirectionCampaign ConceptCopywritingContent Strategy
05 Content & Campaigns +

Multi-channel content strategies built for how audiences actually consume media, earning attention rather than interrupting for it.

EditorialVideoSocial MediaEmailSEO
06 Digital Training +

Immersive hands-on workshops that transform traditional marketing teams into digitally-fluent operators. Applicable the following Monday.

WorkshopseLearning DesignCurriculumAssessment

Track record.

A track record of seeing what was coming, and building for it.

1983
Community is not the same as audience
The Austin Yacht Club BBS, one of the first online communities in the US, built around belonging rather than broadcasting. Two decades before social platforms arrived at the same conclusion.
What it means for you
Your audience does not want to be reached. They want to belong to something real.
1999
Digital is an environment, not a channel
While agencies routed digital through separate interactive sub-departments, we architected native digital campaigns from first principles. No adapted print thinking.
What it means for you
Platform-native thinking is table stakes now. We have been doing it for 25 years.
2008
The industry needed a map. We drew one.
Digital Doesn't Matter: 130+ expert interviews, one of the first interactive books on digital marketing strategy. Built before interactive publishing was a recognised discipline.
What it means for you
We synthesise fast. You get strategy, not a discovery phase that rediscovers things we already know.
2010
Remote is a talent strategy, not a compromise
Heresy opened as one of the first fully distributed brand agencies, with talent across 8 cities on 4 continents. By design, a decade before the rest of the industry arrived under duress.
What it means for you
You get the best person for your problem. Not the nearest available person.

One standard.
Every industry.

The thinking transfers. The standard never changes.

Enterprise Technology

Abstract or invisible products made urgently relevant.

Healthcare & Pharma

Trust-first brand work that navigates complexity without becoming clinical.

Financial Services

Credibility-first positioning in categories where trust is the entire product.

Consumer & Retail

Brand stories that earn loyalty rather than buy it.

SaaS & Digital Products

From product-market fit to market narrative.

Nonprofit & Cause

Mission storytelling that mobilises donors without sacrificing credibility.

Venture & Startup

Brand architecture signalling precision to the audiences that fund growth.

Professional Services

Differentiation for firms where everyone sounds exactly the same.

Who this
tends to
work for

Companies repositioning after growth, an acquisition, or a leadership change
Products or platforms that need a brand before they need a campaign
Teams who have outgrown their current agency but are not ready for a holding company
Founders who know what they want to say but not how to say it
Organisations where the brief keeps coming back wrong
Typical engagements Project Retainer Advisory Workshop

Senior
from
day one.

Heresy was founded in Austin in 2010 on a simple premise: the most experienced practitioners in advertising and digital were being wasted inside large agencies, managing overhead and producing work that had to survive six rounds of approval before reaching an audience.

“We left to build something where the quality of the thinking and the people doing it could actually show up in the work.”

Josh Sklar ran one of the first online communities in the US in 1983: the Austin Yacht Club BBS, featured in the BBS Documentary. He spent the following two decades in senior creative and digital roles at the world's largest agency networks across the US, Asia, and Europe, then wrote one of the first books on digital marketing strategy before that was a recognised category.

The person you meet does the work

No bait-and-switch. The creative director and strategist you talk to on the first call are the ones who deliver on the last one.

You get honesty, not consensus

We tell you what we actually think, including when a direction is wrong or a budget will not achieve what it is asking for.

Fortune 50 rigour at every scale

We have led global campaigns for world-scale brands and built identities for funded startups. The quality of thinking does not change based on logo size.

Industry range is a genuine advantage

Deep experience across sectors brings pattern recognition that single-vertical agencies cannot offer.

We tell you what is next, not just what is now

Four decades of watching digital evolve gives you a different relationship with the future.

Start here

What does
your brand
need to
do next?

You will hear back directly. No process, no intake deck.

contact@heresy.co
Phone
+1 (512) 415-1698
Base
Austin, Texas, operating globally
Since
2010, 15+ years independent