Welcome to freedom.

Your strategic un-agency.

Your opportunity.

Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument.

You have bold plans, but between competing priorities, lack of clarity, and days filled with back-to-back meetings, it’s a struggle to focus on strategic goals. Freedom eliminates the noise so you and your team can keep moving ahead with confidence.

How we get there.

Tackle important priorities.

I’m Dr. Leigh George, and I founded Freedom–a strategic branding and marketing un-agency–to help marketing teams tackle important priorities. Together, we will gain clarity, build consensus, and develop actionable strategies to reach and persuade customers.

Client engagements are customized based on your unique situation, but typically include some combination of these activities:

Research & insights

Research to understand your customers’ motivations, frustrations, aspirations, current brand perceptions and competition. Audits to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your current marketing.

Brand strategy

Brand narratives that make a convincing case of your value; Personality and voice guidelines to bring your brand to life, naming, and brand architecture to define the relationship between your brands.

Marketing strategy

Acquisition and engagement plans; website strategies

A true partner in a heavy lift!

As the market became more competitive, BroadSoft needed to shift from a white label solution for global service providers and build its own brand and raise awareness among end user customers. Leigh is a fantastic collaborator. She jumped into a complex go-to-market strategy, cut through the noise and helped the management team develop a clear, well thought out and executable rebranding strategy that allowed us to move forward at record speed. Leigh went the extra mile to help us develop tactical deliverables and promote the brand to internal and external stakeholders.

- BroadSoft

Cheryl Ragland
Chief Marketing Officer, Infovista
(formerly VP of Corporate Marketing, BroadSoft)

Why Freedom?

Solutions tailored to the results you seek.

No billable hour.

Because I use a flat fee, you’ll never feel like you’re on the clock or being nickel and dimed. Instead, I focus on your challenges and collaborating on the right solution to reach your goals.

Custom and flexible solutions.

Traditional agencies are in business to sell you what they do, not necessarily what you need. Freedom crafts custom and flexible solutions based on your challenges, needs, timeline and budget. I know situations change and can accommodate new priorities to help you stay on track.

Collaborative approach.

There’s no one closer to your business than you are and so it’s essential to leverage your knowledge and involve you in the process. Freedom’s engagements are based on client collaboration because in the end collaboration is key to tackling the challenges that most need solving and creates a greater sense of commitment to and ownership of the work we’ll do together.

Expertise.

I am a recognized branding expert with a Ph.D. in branding from Binghamton University and over 20 years of experience in branding and marketing strategy. I will work with you directly. There’s nothing between you and the expertise and experience your challenge requires.

Commitment.

Effective branding and marketing are ongoing efforts; not a one-time engagement. I am committed to building long-term partnerships with clients and have several relationships with organizations that span more than seven years. My goal is to be a trusted brand steward, continually dedicated to helping organizations highlight their impact and make them worthy of increased attention.

A custom approach you don’t get from large agencies.

From a marketing strategy point of view, Leigh is all any organization will ever need. She analyzed all levels of our marketing from macro to micro, understood the primary motivations of our audiences, our industry, what research to look at and could distill what was most important to organize a marketing campaign from start to finish. With Leigh you get a personalized client experience and executive-level treatment.

- National Confectioners Association

Paul Kissin
Director of Marketing and Web Technology

Meet Leigh.

Customers are the disruptors.

If you don’t understand their motivations, behaviors, and aspirations, your competitors will. For over 20 years, I’ve helped marketing teams eliminate the noise, gain clarity, build consensus, and develop actionable strategies to reach and persuade audiences.

I’ve helped B2B companies including Avtex, BroadSoft (acquired by Cisco), and STO Corp, articulate a compelling brand narrative and shape perception, trade associations, including Biotechnology Innovation Organization, National Association of Chain Drug Stores and National Confectioners Association engage members in their story and increase trade show registration, and nonprofits like Goodwill and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence effectively communicate why they are worthy of attention and support.

I have a Ph.D. in branding—one of the few people in the country with that distinction. You can catch me thinking out loud about making marketing meaningful on screen, social media, and onstage.

Gave us direction and kept us on track.

I’ve been really impressed with Leigh’s ability to understand our membership and policy initiatives. She provided a strategic perspective that allowed our marketing content to tell a much more inclusive story representing the entire organization, and I don’t think we would have had the same experience with another consultant. She helped us apply that story in new member-focused marketing materials and we never would have been able to do that without her.

- Biotechnology Innovation Organization

Elizabeth Gaskins Civils
Managing Director, Membership

Speaking.

Talks that inspire and instruct

Your attendees want to be inspired while learning tactical takeaways and actionable insights. I deliver talks that combine inspiration and action so audience members are energized and acquire tools, processes and strategies they can immediately use back at the office.

Topics

Your audience is unique. I’ll work with you to develop a custom talk tailored to their interests, level of expertise, and the experience you want to create.

Or I can tailor one of my existing keynotes for you, including:

The Transformative Power of Inclusive Marketing 

Resist the tyranny of the persona: Create audience profiles that make you a more effective marketer

From bland to brand: Craft messaging worth paying attention to

Where to catch Leigh

  • Digital Summit Denver – June 27-28, 2023.
  • Digital Summit Atlanta – June 15-16, 2023.
  • American Marketing Association DC – May 23, 2023.
  • Digital Summit DC – April 18-19, 2023.
Watch now.

Stop Believing and Learn What Works

Watch now.

The Power of Inclusive Marketing

Watch now.

Bridge the Divide

Watch now.

The Six Habits of Highly Successful Brands

Watch now.

Marketing Trends that Matter in 2019

Watch now.

Empathizing Your Way to Marketing Success

What attendees are saying.

“Leigh was extremely knowledgeable and I loved how she kept the audience involved. Appreciated that she provided tools and gave us examples for how to use them in our own situations.”

“This is one of the best presentations—I’m so inspired!”

Attendee at Digital Summit at Home 2020

“I fell in love with Leigh’s passion and energy. She’s knowledgeable, funny, and engaging. I learned a lot.”

“This was a great workshop! I could listen to Leigh speak and learn from her all day.”

“Leigh was amazing. Her takeaways and her inclusive session have me already taking action.”

“Inspiring, exciting, made me think. Wonderful, wonderful session.”

Insights.

Ideas and analysis to inspire you

Get (almost) daily posts on making marketing meaningful by following me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

How to Create a JTBD

A persona describes a type of person. A JTBD describes a transformation. Which one do you think will help you to create marketing that is more effective and persuasive?

Resist the Tyranny of the Persona

Personas have become a kind of de facto tool to capture information about audiences. While they’ve helped us put a face to the numbers and humanize vast amounts of abstract quantitative data, it’s time to kick personas to the curb. 

Embrace the Transformation of Job to be Done (JTBD)

In the noise that is marketing today, what we’re looking for is a signal that someone gets us, that they understand what we’re struggling with and what we’re trying to achieve. And that is precisely what JTBD can help you do.

How to Build Truly Inclusive Brands

How do you create an inclusive brand without claiming that everyone is your audience? That question lies at the heart of my branding practice and was a central topic of my conversation with Junior Nyemb on his Empathy Led podcast. We talk about building inclusive brands, making audiences feel seen, and my professional journey from academia to un-agency founder.

Velocitize Now

I share my thoughts on why it’s more important to be personal than to personalize a brand experience, brand trends, and how to give consumers a reason to care about your brand.

How to Create Content that Customers Actually Care About

Learn what you need to execute, not just hope for, a consistent content marketing practice that resonates with your customers.

Azeem Digital Asks podcast

Hear why you should ditch personas and funnels and free yourself from the myth of the attention economy.

Featured in The Fashion Law

TFL Tiffany campaignMy analysis is quoted in The Fashion Law’s article on the controversial “Not Your Mother’s Tiffany” campaign.  

Featured in Harper's Bazaar Arabia

My analysis is quoted in Harper’s Bazaar’s article on marketers’ reaction to how Emily in Paris portrays the industry

Freedom Conversations

Freedom Conversations are seven conversations I hosted celebrating vulnerability, trust, inspiration, community, social learning, fandom, and generosity in honor of Freedom’s 7th anniversary.

Attacked the problem as if she was one of us.

Our goal was to better understand our customers, and Leigh really understood what we were trying to do. She takes a very thoughtful, collaborative and customized approach to marketing challenges, tailoring every aspect of our engagement with her around our needs and the results we sought. Working with Leigh you’re going to get someone who understands nuances, takes in feedback and goes beyond what’s expected.

- Len the Plumber

Lisa Ninosky
Director of Marketing

Let's talk.

How can I help?

Get in touch at [email protected] or 301.332.1723.