Ed Cotton

Ed graduated from Oxford Polytechnic with a degree in business. He then joined McCann Erickson Europe’s marketing-consultancy division, working on Black & Decker, Del Monte and Martini. He soon took on a role in international account planning on the Boot’s and Levi’s businesses. Following jobs at Lowe Howard-Spink and Woollams Moira Gaskin O’Malley, he became a founding partner in Europe’s first Gen-X agency, Magic Hat. There, he helped build the client roster to include Rolling Rock, Unilever, Bacardi-Martini and commercial projects for the Spice Girls. In the mid-’90s he moved to McCann Erickson in Seattle. Ed won a gold Effie for his work on PowerAde and also helped launch Washington Mutual bank in California. Ed joined BSSP in 1999. As director of strategy, Ed leads brand-strategy development efforts for our clients, including consumer research and data analytics. Ed also started one of the earliest and most popular marketing blogs, www.influxinsights.com, and was recently recognized by Adweek as one of the 25 best advertising voices on Twitter.