Few names resonate as profoundly in the niche of branding and creativity as Stephen Gray's. As the heart and soul of CREAMOS, Stephen has cultivated a brand that thrives on emotion, connection, and purpose. In this, our first blog article, we delve into the mind of the visionary leader, exploring the journey that has shaped him and the values that continue to drive the agency forward.
Through this interview, Stephen shares his insights, and the ethos behind CREAMOS. His story is about passion, innovation, and an unwavering commitment to making brands experiences that matter.
Q. We want to know the man, mind, and heart behind CREAMOS. Who are you, Stephen?
A. I've been described as entrepreneurial, but at heart, I'm a digital futurist, strategist and creative, involved in the space my entire academic and professional life (25 years).
Q. What is your present primary focus?
A. I've started a venture studio called Good Unicorn that creates impact startups (tech-for-good). And, of course, I also continue to work with creative agency Creamos, directing our creative team on high-profile client projects.
Q. What is Good Unicorn about?
A. Good Unicorn acts as a creative incubator and offers shared operational resources to its created startups while serving them with the resources of our world-class creative agency, Creamos. We have five startups in our pipeline.
Q. Can you tell more about the startups?
A. We only reveal the details of the startups to the public when we are ready to spin out the companies, and we're at an early stage of the studio's life.
That said, our first startup, Resbite, is ready. It draws on my experience as a social tech anthropologist to reimagine what social networking can look like if designed with a code of ethics. Resbite is currently looking for Co-Founders and seed investment.
Q. What about CREAMOS, your Creative Agency?
A. Creamos is my latest agency. To be honest, I set this up because I needed a sustainable income to fund the ethical work I wanted to do. However, I did make sure that the agency had its own impact, focusing on balancing the distribution of wealth as a business model.
To accomplish this, we have client-side services in global North economies, our creative team in Argentina, and our production distributed across all Spanish-speaking Latin America. Our freelancers earn more than typical in their territories, we make a healthy margin, and our clients receive better-value products. Win, win, win!
Aside from its impact, it also allows the agency to be creative. We operate an approved freelance list that allows us to choose any medium, style, or scale of the team. That versatility shines through in the diversity of our portfolio and allows us to pick the best ideas possible instead of those limited by our supply.
Back to impact, we also wanted to have a local focus. We therefore started a CSR initiative called 'Level Up', which makes the agency resources available to impact startups outside of Good Unicorn by discounting our standard rates.
Q. What other things am you involved with?
A. I continue to research and share my opinions on social technologies. As a mentor within tech incubators and accelerators, I help other startups with brand and product design.
I act in a fractional CINO role for exceptional startups to which I take a shine. I advocate for neurodiversity and try to be open about my own issues and personal development with ADHD.
🚀 Stephen´s Journey in first person
After university, I started my first business, the digital creative agency Stickee. We worked with some of the world's leading brands to create campaigns that kept people 'stuck' in the experience.
It took the next 15 years to find my true calling, which I found from work and personal experiences. At Stickee, we created digital projects that influenced human addictive behaviour. At the same time, I was experiencing family trauma caused or accentuated by toxic human-tech relationships. I realised that designers of any experience have the power to positively or negatively affect their audience's behaviour, social dynamic and well-being.
I felt compelled to educate designers, especially in the tech sector, about what I had discovered and wanted to expose unethical design practices. In 2016, I sold Stickee and set up Real Social Tech to research my newly found interest.
At the start of 2020, I'd exhausted my funding and left feeling frustrated with the lack of interest and slow pace of change in the social tech sector. Fed up with preaching on deaf ears and realising this space was starting to fill with higher-profile big-tech converts; I decided to do what I do best and take action.
