Jim Haven - creative director & brand strategist

“ I hire a lot of creative agencies and a lot of them suck. If I hire you, you might suck, but I know you’ll suck in way I’ve never seen before”

- Chris Spadaccini - Former EVP Head of Marketing at HBO after pitching him my approach. *

Hello, I’m Jim Haven, a strategically minded creative director with a propensity for asking questions and creating narratives that I rely on as the starting point of any creative endeavor.

Colloquially speaking, I help brands discover who they are and what they can become. It’s a process of inquiry and insights and creativity where I harness the brilliance of brand strategists, creatives, designers and technologists building brands as experiences.  That’s the “director” part of what I do, but when possible, I’m drawn to being an essential part of the creative process.

I began my career as an advertising copywriter and that’s evolved into the type of creative I am now; naturally bridging the gap between business strategy, brand strategy and creative execution. The through line is my writing and what some might see as my slightly off-piste point of view that often results in projects that feel both original and perfectly suited to the challenge. Whether I’m refreshing a brand, creating a new one or helping a brand get exposure though advertising or some alternative approach, I believe in respecting the audience we are trying to reach by paying them back for their precious time. You do that by working hard to make sure it’s giving something back to them. It could be in the form of a smile, or smart information, or making them feel smarter, or sharing something beautiful or thoughtful but as long as you understand that relationship, the work will be not only do what it set out to do, but do so at a high level.

My career has taken me from ad agencies like Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, to Strawberryfrog in Amsterdam before founding my own creative agency, Creature.  Post Creature, I relocated to London to work with the unbelievably talented Unit9, perennial Adage production co. of the year winners.

As co-founder of Creature, I was the Chief Creative Officer and an energetic, sometimes overly optimistic part of the leadership team. My role involved guiding strategy, creative and helping shape the agency vision with the amazingly talented people around me. Later I led the opening of our second office, Creature of London establishing the executive team there and key new business.  I’ve always enjoyed doing my best to understand the totality of any business I’m working on. After all, I’m involved in projects that have to be held accountable to deliver whatever the goal may be.

While most of my experience is from the “agency” side, I’ve had the pleasure to get involved on the client side as well where I learned a lot more about how that ecosystem differs. To be honest, working in a brand affords much more opportunity to apply creative holistically and can be so much more powerful.

I’ve worked on a wide range of both start-ups and established brands including Dickies, HBO, The Wall Street Journal, Starbucks, Bill Gates,  Amazon, Porsche, Pacifico Beer, Isuzu, PepsiCo Brands, Microsoft, E*Trade, Google, and D-Wave Quantum to name a few.   Some of the smaller brands have been incredibly rewarding.  I don’t like to be labeled as a specialist, but I have worked quite a beverage brands. I do enjoy a good liquid.  

My work and opinions have been covered by numerous publications including the New York Times, Creativity, Communication Arts, Ad Age, AdWeek, The Drum, Gizmodo, and TedX where I spoke on the power of wonder.  (That’s a longer story) 

I don’t think you should care much about this kind of stuff, but I’ve been recognised by industry awards including Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, Communication Arts, Under Consideration, Dieline Awards, The Art Directors Club, Addy's, Ad Age Small Agency of the Year, and The Project Isaac Award for Innovation. The weirdest award was a life-sized purple chair that looked like a cartoon from Yahoo called the big idea chair for innovation in advertising. 

Of course no about section would be complete without revealing that I’m a father to a little girl. Because I can say being a father makes me better at anything.

Thank you, Jim

Select Press:

Ad Week - On the spot - ( ye olde interview)

Dynamic Seattleites -

Creative Interviews: Jim Haven

Ad Age - Small Agency of the Year - 2014

Client Experience