John Hollywood

As managing director of Zeno Group, New York, John Hollywood ensures the agency’s creative firepower is laser focused on programming built upon insight-driven strategies designed to create meaningful change. John provides strategic and creative oversight to a wide range of the agency’s key businesses.

His passion is helping brands forge enduring connections with consumers.

John has never believed in “marketing to.” He practices “marketing with.” He takes pride in eschewing paint-by-numbers PR initiatives to engage consumers in co-authorship of campaigns that feel authentically their own. To John, all marketing is experiential marketing; all consumers promising brand evangelists. He credits his obsessively optimistic POV to working with an insane mix of some of the best-loved brands on the planet: Bacardi, The Rolling Stones, M&Ms, Mercedes-Benz, Walmart and Hennessy, among them.

Whether tackling the launch of a new candy color or a pressing global health issue, John approaches each client challenge with the same initial question: “What the behavior we are really trying to inspire here?” His personal quest is to get at the “why” that makes the difference. To his enrichment, the “whys” he’s discovered along the way have been wildly divergent, but always linked in some way to making life better. For a current and key client, Bacardi, living a bold and passionate life is a direct link to the founder’s vision. But for others, it’s taken some interesting twists and turns. For instance, he’s studied trends in global pandemics to predict the path of the avian flu – not long after he scoured the country to find the nation’s most beautiful feet. That’s one of the things John loves best about his job – every difference is different.
John is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.