Tom Roach
Championing Commercial Creativity
Over 20 years of strategic experience with leading agencies such as AMV BBDO, Leo Burnett, BBH, adam&eveDDB, and Jellyfish. Collaborated with renowned brands including McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, The BBC, Mercedes-Benz, and John Lewis. Recipient of multiple Gold and Silver IPA Effectiveness Awards; contributed to BBH’s recognition as IPA’s ‘Effectiveness Company of the Year’ (2018-19).
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Tom Roach's 2025 biography
Tom Roach, VP Brand Strategy, Jellyfish
Tom is a marketing and communications strategist with 25+ years of experience in some of the world’s best agencies, including adam&eveDDB, BBH London, Leo Burnett and AMV BBDO. He is one of the most highly awarded authors of IPA Effectiveness cases in its history, with multiple gold IPA Effectiveness Awards to his name, including for Sainsbury’s, McDonald’s and John Lewis.
His regular articles on marketing and creative effectiveness for Marketing Week, WARC and his own blog are required reading in the industry, and consistently include thought leadership which has become widely adopted in marketing practice. He is the originator of cutting edge marketing thinking on a diverse range of topics including bothism, brand building in the platform age, the new marketing funnel, the performance plateau, and latterly the application of GenAI for brands.
As VP Brand Strategy at integrated digital marketing business Jellyfish, part of the Brandtech Group, Tom works across their global client portfolio to deliver more effective digital marketing strategy and execution, with a particular focus on how brands can achieve a balanced approach across brand and performance activity and the convergence of creative and media in the new platform landscape.
Before moving to Jellyfish, he was Executive Strategy Director and Head of Effectiveness at adam&eveDDB, where he worked alongside the ‘Godfather of Effectiveness’ Les Binet. Prior to this he was proud to have steered BBH London to the title of Effectiveness Company of the Year at the IPA Effectiveness Awards 2018, in his role as Head of Performance at BBH.
He is in demand as a speaker at major marketing industry events, including at SXSW, Cannes Lions, Google Think, Google Firestarters and the IPA’s Effweek.
Tom Roach's 2025 talks & topics
How to build a Global Power Brand
- The value of brand – the commercial benefits of building a powerful brand.
- How brands grow – the laws of growth, e.g. driving penetration, not frequency
- What even is brand building – the core role for brand building being to build and refresh memory structures through repeated exposure.
- The key ingredients of a long-term brand strategy
- The need for balance – between long-term brand building and short-term performance
- When brands get it wrong – the dangers of short-termism and the ‘performance plateau’
- Key principles of effective modern communication: eg reach, attention, creativity, consistency, distinctiveness, motivation, fitness-for-platform.
- Case studies and cautionary tales from global brands will be weaved in throughout: for example, including McDonald’s, Lego, Airbnb, Asos, Adidas, Old Spice, Kellogg’s, Liquid Death
Seven principles of effective marketing communication
Based on how people—not platforms—process information, these seven timeless principles help marketers create campaigns that truly work. From reaching broad audiences to using emotion and creativity effectively, Tom Roach outlines how to drive brand growth in any media landscape.
Brand building must adapt to the age of creative fragmentation
Tom Roach explores how marketers can balance consistent brand messaging with the need for fresh, platform-first content. In a fragmented media landscape, success means combining strategic consistency with creative flexibility.
Is your brand stuck on the performance plateau?
What is it, why are you stuck on it, how are you going to get off it?
Tom Roach explains how over-relying on performance marketing can lead to stagnation. To break through, brands must balance short-term tactics with long-term brand building.
The Wrong and the Short of it…again
A powerful reminder that long-term brand building and short-term activation aren’t opposites—they’re interdependent. This talk debunks the false divide between brand and performance marketing and shows how combining the two drives real, sustainable growth.
Brand building in the platforms
Tom Roach challenges the notion that digital platforms are ineffective for brand development. He highlights the rise of digital video and evolving platform strategies as pivotal in enhancing brand-building capabilities. Roach underscores the importance of integrating both long-term brand strategies and short-term sales activations within digital channels, advocating for a balanced approach to achieve sustainable growth.
Fandom, Influencers, and the Rise of the Creator Economy
It explores how fan culture connects to influencer marketing and how major brands are adapting their strategies—highlighted by Unilever’s significant investment in influencer activity.
And AI inevitably came up
Tom Roach emphasized the importance of understanding what large language models are saying about your brand and the need to grasp your brand’s “Share of Model.”
Bothism – balancing brand & performance
Navigating a world of media and creative fragmentation