Coworking with Rebekah Pagis

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Rebekah Pagis is president, North America, at WPP’s Design Bridge and Partners. She was previously chief growth officer at WPP North America, and she has also worked at agencies including MullenLowe US, Venables Bell and Partners, Razorfish, and mcgarrybowen.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I actually think about this a lot because I’m always trying to explain to my son what I do. He has a rare genetic condition, Williams syndrome, which comes with intellectual and developmental delays, so I’m used to trying to break big ideas into simple ones.

Here’s how I explain my role: Every brand you know—from a bank to a soda—has a team behind it trying to figure out what it should stand for. Why should people care about it? What makes it different from the others? How should it look, sound, and show up in the world? My job is to help brands answer those questions. I help them understand who they are and how to stand out in a way people will remember.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? One of my recent favorites has been our work with Suntory Spirits on Hardin’s Creek. Many brands immediately jump to an ad campaign when they’re facing a challenge, but packaging is often one of the most powerful tools in the brand toolkit. The logic is simple: pack shapes perception, perception shapes brand, and brand shapes business. In this case, the whiskey category had been struggling to connect with younger drinkers, so we transformed the packaging into a kind of map. The pack itself became an invitation into a world of discovery—almost like a gamified gateway where the whiskey comes to life.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? I really love the work for CoorDown, both “Assume That I Can” and “No Decision Without Us.” They carry such an important message around inclusion and celebrating the rights of people with Down syndrome and other disabilities—and are so well-produced and thoughtfully crafted.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile. My favorite type of music is experimental and alternative hip-hop. Earl Sweatshirt is on the top of my list at present, but honestly my Spotify is a hot mess because my son likes to listen to all his unique music on my account!

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? Generative AI is, for me, both the most exciting and the most frustrating trend in our industry. It’s already reshaping how we work, but it’s also become incredibly buzzy and often badly used. At the same time, it’s been unfairly cast as a creativity or job killer, which I don’t believe it is.

Right now, we’re in the awkward toddler-learning-to-walk phase: lots of tripping, lots of hype, and plenty of fearmongering. That’s the part I’m least excited about. But I’m deeply optimistic about what comes next. We haven’t even scratched the surface of what generative AI can unlock for creators. Once the noise dies down and the tools mature, I think AI will expand, not replace, our creativity in ways that are genuinely transformative.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? If you want to stay sharp on the big industry trends, nothing beats the Pivot podcast. If you’re feeling burnt out and just need a laugh (and a reminder that you’re not alone in this wonderfully chaotic industry), @digital_chadvertising on Instagram is hilarious.