Creative 100: The Media Innovators Reimagining the Future

As the media sector bends under pressure, with many known outlets shuttering or cutting back in the past year, these innovators—part of Adweek’s 2023 Creative 100—are forging new pathways to elevate diverse voices and conversations. From podcasts to newsletters to social channels, their avenues lead to a reimagined future for the industry. Joy Harden Bradford Podcast host, Therapy for Black Girls Overturning stigma: An experienced psychologist and host of the Webby Award-winning mental health podcast Therapy for Black Girls, Joy Harden Bradford is committed to reducing the stigma related to mental health in the Black community. She does this by making mental health topics more accessible and relevant while using pop culture to illustrate psychological concepts. Speaking to women: Through her podcasts, Bradford helps Black women recover from breakups, manage the transitions related to college and graduate school, and create their own ideas about who they are as women and what their lives should look like. “I wanted to give people the resources and the language that would help them really talk about some of the everyday mental health things that come up in our lives,” Bradford told Glamour in 2022. Favorite life advice: "Making sure that you understand that your career is only one part of your life—it’s not your entire life. Some of Toni Morrison's words always ring true to me: You should save the best of you for the people in your life, not necessarily for your work," Bradford told Glamour. —Trisha Ostwal Jessica DeFino Journalist, beauty culture critic, The Unpublishable Carving her own path: A beauty journalist who has written for the likes of Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Vogue, DeFino gained attention in 2022 for a Vice article recounting her experience working for the Kardashian Jenner official apps and being underpaid and unable to afford bills like gas. She is best known for her weekly Substack newsletter The Unpublishable, which she started during the pandemic and is focused on “dismantling beauty standards, debunking marketing myths and exploring how beauty culture impacts people physically, psychologically and psychospiritually.” Challenging beauty content: In The Unpublishable, DeFino writes her “most unpublishable pitches: the beauty-critical content that publications can’t, won’t or don’t cover,” as she describes it. “It’s what the beauty industry won’t tell you—from a reporter on a mission to reform it.” Previous editions have tackled the beauty brands backing abortion bans, the industry’s sustainability problem and skin care myths. "Yanking consumers out of the matrix": DeFino has been heralded as “the woman the beauty industry fears the most” (according to New Zealand’s The Sunday Herald) and for “yanking consumers out of the matrix made by the beauty industry" (per HuffPost). —Brittaney Kiefer Glennon Doyle Author, activist, podcaster "Dangerous conversations": In 2021, Doyle started the podcast We Can Do Hard Things, named after her personal mantra, co-hosted by her sister, Amanda Doyle, and wife Abby Wambach. Besides interviewing celebrities like Michelle Obama, Reese Witherspoon and Natalie Portman, Doyle and team have tackled often taboo subjects from mental health to body image. Doyle also candidly addresses her own struggles with addiction and disordered eating. She told The Hollywood Reporter, which named her one of the most powerful people in podcasting in 2022, that podcasts are the ideal medium for “dangerous conversations.” Art meets activism: Doyle first gained attention as a Christian parenting blogger through the blog Momastery, before publishing the best-selling memoirs Love Warrior and Carry On, Warrior. Her 2020 memoir, Untamed, which chronicles how she left her first marriage to her husband and fell in love with her wife, Abby, was a New York Times No. 1 bestseller. Doyle is also an activist who founded the nonprofit Together Rising, which has raised more than $45 million for women, families and children in crisis. On evolution: “If I was the same person I was 10 years ago, I would be devastated. I am constantly surprising myself. Seven years ago, I thought I was a straight, Christian Pisces. Now I’m a queer, agnostic, [and a little] Christian-y Aries,” Doyle told Elle. “I won’t write another book until I’m a new person. So I hope to keep changing.” —Brittaney Kiefer Fuhad Dawodu and James Duncan Hosts, ShxtsNGigs podcast Unfiltered conversations: Best friends James Duncan and Fuhad Dawodu, hosts of the podcast ShxtsNGigs, have mastered the art of raw conversations while poking fun at the absurdities of modern relationships. Their honesty and humor are an antidote to the tropes of toxic masculinity. First to video-first: Short-form video has transformed the internet, with companies from Spotify to The Washington Post tapping into the medium to capitalize on its high engagement. Duncan and Dawodu are among a handful of podcasters who realized early the viral potential of using vertical video to amplify their reach, and their easy on-screen chemistry makes them just as fun to watch as listen to. The business of podcasting: Making a podcast takes very little time, but turning a podcast into a business means going far beyond cutting a good show. At ShxtsNGigs, Duncan and Dawodu helped write the playbook for multichannel monetization, turning their hit audio product into merchandise, tours, a Patreon offering and, of course, advertising. —Mark Stenberg Brad Haugen President, Westbrook Media Marketing with the stars: Before arriving at Westbrook Media in 2019, Haugen started his career at BBH, was the founding chairman of Pencils of Promise and joined Scooter Braun Projects, running the marketing for the likes of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Tori Kelly, PSY and more. In 2015, he joined ATTN as a founding partner, building the brand partnerships and revenue operation from zero to more than $25 million in under four years. Happy (virtual) New Year: In partnership with Media.Monks and Shaquille O’Neal’s Jersey Legends Productions, Westbrook produced a 1-hour interactive New Year’s Eve special, The Shaq-tacular Spectacular, a custom-made for VR for Shaquille O’Neil and Meta. The VR experience included performances by Cardi B, Ludacris, Lil Yachty, Killer Mike, Whipped Cream and DJ Diesel, special guest appearances by Rob Gronkowski and Camille Kostek. Fans were able to experience the countdown special using the Meta Quest 2 headset in Meta Horizon Worlds, Meta Quest TV and O’Neal’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Brand-new brand strategies: Haugen oversees brand work, nonscripted television, social media marketing, talent partnerships and strategic media and brand relationships. As such, the Westbrook Media president is aware brands are trying to find new audiences in a fragmented landscape: “We are thinking every day about how we work with brands to make shows, documentaries, social content and beyond in partnership with the best talent, creators, platforms and networks—all while we work to find the most cost-efficient and premium ways to tell universally resonant stories with our brand partners.” —Bill Bradley Steve Jones Founder, CEO, Pocstock Bringing inclusivity to stock media: From helping launch the 9/11 preview site on Vesey Street in lower Manhattan to working on brand projects for companies such as Marvel, Jones has already had an impressive career. However, by founding Pocstock, a global stock media platform focusing on people of color, Jones was able to bring inclusivity to the visual asset landscape. "Purpose beyond profit": “I set the creative vision for a company that has a purpose beyond profit,” Jones told Adweek in 2022. “Seeing the impact that we’re making in different parts of the world is very rewarding and makes the insane amount of effort worth it.” Rejecting stereotypes: Pocstock rejects submitted images that perpetuate negative stereotypes, promoting positive images to act as a counter to negative portrayals of race. “As a societal problem, you’ll have fewer George Floyds and fewer lives being taken for granted,” Jones told AfroTech. “People start to see us as loving, meaningful human beings who deserve the right to live, the right to be heard, the right to be seen and the right to be valued.” —Bill Bradley Lori Leibovich Editor of Well, The New York Times New Year, newsletter: After launching its pop-up newsletter, the 7-Day Happiness Challenge, on Jan. 1, The New York Times’ Well desk generated 110,000 email subscribers in just over a week. Leibovich, who leads the vertical, plans to incorporate more capsule newsletters into Well’s editorial strategy, as they enable the team to capitalize on key moments in the health and wellness calendar. Fact-checking TikTok: “In health journalism, in particular, we are battling misinformation on social platforms like TikTok and Instagram,” Leibovich said. “At Well, we combat this every day by providing readers with science-backed service journalism and news coverage that can help them make informed decisions about their health.” Health matters: Health has long been an object of intense focus for a certain subset of the population, but the Covid-19 pandemic brought the issue front and center across the world. By applying The Times’ rigorous reporting to the subject, Leibovich and her team have been able to turn a source of anxiety into a success story: In 2022, four of The Times’ top 10 most-shared articles came from the Well desk. —Mark Stenberg Stephen Mai Founder, CEO, executive creative director, Woo Isles seat: Mai previously led marketing at Potato Head Family, Boiler Room, LadBible Group and Vice Media. While at LadBible, he notably oversaw the media brand’s Cannes-winning "Trash Isles" campaign, which addressed the ocean’s plastic pollution crisis. Innovating for Gen Z: Woo describes itself as a “new-generation media brand and marketplace redefining wellness for Gen Z.” Since its launch in 2022, Woo now reaches an average of 78 million people a month, has featured 4,500 products in its marketplace, and introduced content formats such as “higher frequencies,” which merges pop stars and DJs with sound frequencies curated by neuroscientists to help people feel calm. Besides revenue from its marketplace, Woo also set up an in-house creative agency and incubator, Woo Studio, this year. The studio works with brands to target Gen Z through “feel-good” content and digital storytelling. Not a "content factory": As media brands from BuzzFeed News to Vice shut or scale down, Mai said Woo is addressing the sector’s challenges in several ways: “We're building a commercial model tied to an alternative to advertising from the offset (ecommerce). We're not here to be a content factory. Everything we do is intentional and designed to drive brand equity, engagement and build our credibility in the new ‘wellness’ culture we've created. We're platform agnostic, meaning we design our output and distribution with Gen Z consumption habits in mind.” —Brittaney Kiefer Kiana Moore VP of content production and Epic Stories, Vox Creative, Vox Media An Epic career: Moore, who has been vp of content production at Vox Media for two years, climbed the ladder in the entertainment industry: “I started my career in scripted and nonscripted TV production as a receptionist and executive assistant to the executive producer. From there, I moved to Los Angeles and worked my way up to production manager, story editor, story producer and eventually executive producer.” She then joined Epic Magazine, running overall operations and Epic Digital, which Vox Media acquired. Not just Tik-ing a box: Overseeing all content production for every brand the company partners with, Moore takes great care in Vox projects: “I’m proud and excited to work on a series called TikDoc for TikTok, which focused on individual stories about people who used TikTok to connect to a community or grow their business … it showed the positive impact that social media can have on people. We had the opportunity to engage and elevate the voices of different communities.” Her mother's daughter: Moore grew up in New York, raised by a single mother who “worked every day of her life,” the exec explained. “That strong Black woman helped me become a strong, opinionated Black woman who speaks up when things aren’t right, who fights for access and opportunity, who believes she can be anything in this world and who can keep up the pace with anyone in the room!” —Bill Bradley Jonathan Nunn Founding editor, Vittles Pandemic origins: Nunn, a former contributor at food publication Eater London, started the U.K.-based newsletter Vittles in March 2020 as restaurants shuttered around the world during Covid-19 lockdowns. Vittles publishes food reviews and essays, has more than 40,000 subscribers and employs two other editors, Sharanya Deepak and Rebecca May Johnson. Disrupting food media: After Eater London shut down in February, it left a bigger opening for new kinds of food writing. Vittles stands apart by commissioning emerging and diverse writers and spotlighting food that can often be overlooked by established restaurant critics. “I want to platform a new type of food writing in the U.K.,” Nunn wrote in his first Vittles entry. British publication The New Statesman said Vittles “seeks to fill the large gaps left behind by the U.K.’s elite and inaccessible food media,” while The British Library called it one of “the most significant, exciting, innovative and broad-reaching platforms in the food world.” On the fringes: Many of restaurants reviewed in Vittles won’t be spotlighted in mainstream newspapers, as Nunn and his contributors often venture outside central London. “I feel like, as food has become a bigger and bigger cultural thing, the media has kind of shrunk,” Nunn told The New Yorker in March. —Brittaney Kiefer Jayde Powell Founder, head of creative, The Em Dash Co On founding a startup: This month, Powell launched The Em Dash Co, a one-woman-led content and creative development agency. Before this, she was predominantly a social media strategist working for both agencies and brands including Delta Air Lines. Pushing creative boundaries: “Everyone is a creative in their own way. I am personally making it my mission to challenge the idea of what that looks like. While I can build a game plan and determine a vision for a brand’s social media based on data and analytics, I can also show what that will look like visually and write the story for how it will make people feel," Powell said. Infusing her culture: Powell grew up in a Jamaican family in the Atlanta suburbs, but spent most of her formative years immersed in city culture and creativity. Regular activities included watching the street art on the West End, enjoying lemon pepper wings with lemonade, or visiting the Caribbean bakery on Memorial Drive. “Black culture, no matter which part of the diaspora, is infused into my being, and therefore shows up in my work," she said. "Throughout my career, I’ve worked in predominantly white organizations, and I was often the only Black person or person of color on my teams. Infusing my culture into my work in some way, shape or form allowed me to feel seen in those spaces.” —Trishla Ostwal Ronnie Singh Head of lifestyle and content marketing, 2K Gaming social media: Singh, better known as Ronnie2K, helped pioneer a career path that has since become a dream job for avid gamers across the world. After leaving a position in the legal field, Singh was able to parlay his love for the franchise NBA 2K into a digital marketing position with the company, eventually becoming the online face of the series and one of its most influential advocates. Rating the ratings: As the face of the gaming franchise, Singh has been cast as both the scapegoat and the savior for every decision made to the gameplay of NBA 2K—including its player ratings. The divisive metrics, which translate players’ real abilities into their in-game acumen, have drawn the ire of players from Klay Thompson to John Wall, both of whom have singled Singh out in particular for the perceived slights. Culture beyond sports: Much of the magic of 2K comes from its hyper-reality, which encompasses everything from players' sneakers to the soundtrack of the game. Professional basketball players have increasingly become fixtures of popular culture, and Singh has helped connect the dots of their influence by ensuring the game gets every detail right—even down to their hairlines. —Mark Stenberg Check out Adweek’s Creative 100 for 2023 by category: Agency Leaders | Rising Agency Talent | Branded Content Innovators | TV and Streaming Innovators | Influencers and Celebrities | Authors and Artists | Directors This story is part of Adweek’s Creativity x Culture digital features package, which spotlights the people, marketing strategies and creativity driving lasting cultural and societal change.

The Creative 100

Creative 100 2023: The Media Innovators Reimagining the Industry’s Future

These talents are forging new pathways to elevate diverse voices and conversations

Joy Harden Bradford

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