Richard Wise

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT RICHARD WISE

I had a net worth of $45 and was chauffeuring for the Saudi royal family in Paris while studying semiotics at the Sorbonne. I was 22. That’s when I got the inspiration to be a Brand Anthropologist. I realized I already had an exotic population to study: my clients. I mapped the cultural code of luxury, projecting how it would evolve into the future and found my way to serving as an anthropological consultant for high-profile marketers at Diageo, Bulgari and Mercedes-Benz. Ever since, I’ve been a speaker at World Future Trends, Front Edge of Innovation and Nudgestock and have also served as a consulting futurist for Faith Popcorn’s Brain Reserve and the Wharton School. Today, I’m traveling the world as a Brand Anthropologist inside WPP\'s VMLY & R network and my client list has expanded to include Bacardi, Philips, Virgin, Diesel, Ford and Coca-Cola. My work in recent months took me to Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Cape Town, Rome and back to Paris where my voyage of discoveries first started. I’ve learned that every marketer, whether for a corporate brand or one’s own brand, has to learn how to transcend the psychopathic narcissism which always plays some part in their drive to promote themselves and their brands. This gives them a good chance of creating something that is not perceived as merely self-serving or downright stupid. I tell the story of this in my book,\"Save Your Soul: Work in Advertising!\" I seek to open up new levels of insight about why we do - and buy - the things we do and what that teaches us about the cultural codes that subtly bind us together.