Guest · The future of agencies
Adam Clyne
Founder and CEO, Coolr
Founder and CEO of Coolr, the independent social-first agency built to win at the speed of culture. He argues social is no longer a channel a brand bolts on, it is where culture now happens.
About
Adam Clyne founded Coolr in 2017 and has built it into an independent, social-first agency of more than 150 people across London and New York, with a Cannes Lions win for its Burger King work. He came to it through two decades in PR, content and digital: commercial and managing director roles at Kindred and at TVC Group, which he helped expand internationally before its sale to The Economist Group, then Head of Digital across Weber Shandwick's EMEA offices and a spell as COO of LADbible. His career has tracked the rise of social from a single channel into the place where culture now happens.
Coolr began with a bet that no one else was quite making. Adam had seen two worlds up close: the strategic discipline and compliance that large brands demand, and the speed, agility and instinct for culture he absorbed as COO of LADbible. Most agencies could do one or the other. He built Coolr to do both at once, big-agency thinking delivered at the pace of a social publisher. The name carries the idea, an evolution of the office water-cooler conversation, now relocated to the social feed.
The proof came early, with Burger King. A Twitter activation built around Kanye West became the most-liked tweet a brand had delivered at the time and won a Cannes Lion. It showed brands a permission they had not had before, to move at the speed of culture rather than the speed of the approval process. Burger King is still Coolr's client of record eight years on.
What Adam will not do is stray. Coolr stays in its lane, social content, publishing and influencer, and aims to be best in class there rather than competent everywhere. He is blunt that for most brands social should be the first line of the marketing plan, not an afterthought, and that a CMO who is not building from there has the order wrong.
Career26 years
- 2017 to now Coolr Founder and CEO
- 2016 TheLADbible Group
- 2015 to 2016 Weber Shandwick Head of Digital, EMEA
- 2009 to 2014 TVC Group, later The Economist Group
Show earlier roles: Kindred, Geronimo Communications, The Lab, Early career
- 2005 to 2009 Kindred, Geronimo Communications
- 2002 to 2005 The Lab Founder and MD of an award-winning youth and fashion agency, merged into Geronimo in 2005
- 2000 to 2002 Early career PR and account roles at JWT, Mason Williams and Connectpoint
How Adam thinks3 convictions
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Social is the first line, not the last
Coolr's case is that social has stopped being a channel brands add at the end. In 2025 US social viewership overtook linear TV for the first time. A marketing plan that does not start there has the order wrong.
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Stay in the lane
Coolr does social content, publishing and influencer, and aims to be best in class at those rather than competent everywhere. No TV commercials, no PR, no events. The discipline is the point.
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Match-fit for today
While the industry chases the new, Adam's view is that most brands have not got their fundamentals right. One global brand aspiring to be best-in-class on social had not posted on a channel in twelve months. Fix today before chasing tomorrow.
