Young Innovator Nominee: Corbin Brown, Giant Spoon

Why he is nominated: Corbin Brown may have been the first hire after strategy and innovation-driven marketing agency Giant Spoon was formed, but he's since been instrumental in shaping the company’s success.

Now, at 28, Brown is already running one of the agency’s most prominent and award-winning accounts, GE. Having previously built Giant Spoon’s intelligence practice in his first year – a service that provides future-proofing marketing and technology insights to all clients – and led the development of award-winning marketing projects for GE in his second year, Brown has spent his third year at Giant Spoon helping to build the agency’s media practice, which GE utilizes, from scratch.

Today, as Associate Director of Strategy, Brown is managing a team of eight as the multi-faceted AOR that imagines new ways to tell GE’s digital industrial story to consumers. After the success of GE’s The Message podcast, Brown is the project lead for GE Podcast Theater's LifeAfter, a sci-real series that will delve into a significant question of our digital age: if our lives are constantly being recorded and saved online, do we ever really die? Brown led marketing strategy, content development, and partnerships for the new show, which launches on November 13th. Its current teaser is already drawing excitement from the podcast community.

Under Brown’s leadership, Giant Spoon has carved out an additional service offering by becoming a lead product marketing agency, spearheading the conception, positioning, execution, and distribution of small-batch consumer products that make GE’s digital industrial story more tangible. This year, it helped GE launch the world’s hottest hot sauce – to celebrate GE’s leading authority on materials science and thermal technology – and developed an indestructible umbrella to demonstrate that GE technology can handle anything that’s thrown its way.

At Giant Spoon, every idea begins at the place where culture, technology, content, and media collide. Recently, it launched its second Culture Manual – a coffee-table keepsake that provides a snapshot of culture in 2016, specifically spotlighting how technology is shaping society. Brown was the Culture Manual’s Editor, where he highlighted movements and voices that are spearheading culturally-driven changes.

Late last year, Brown was part of the team who ideated the award-winning (Cannes + Grand Prix, Adweek Media Plan of the Year, Clios, Webby) GE + NYTVR activation, helping to bring GE-branded VR headsets to 1.3MM NYT subscribers, marking the first time VR was introduced to the masses at scale.

The Young Innovator Award celebrates excellence and innovation by young professionals. See the other nominees and their backgrounds and check back to learn who has won this prestigious honor from The Advertising Club of New York and Google, with support from The Drum.