Yesterday, PRWeek rolled out its annual Agency Business Report – tracking trends and top players in the world of communications, public relations, and marketing.

Having just launched Big Future in late 2024, we’re honored to get noticed as a top “up and coming” agency. PRWeek’s Noah Zuss wrote a nice feature about our founding story and value proposition to brands looking to create deeper meaning and shared identity through a focused worldview.

Fun fact: As the story notes, we indeed held our first conversations about partnering to build Big Future over a series of lunches at Clancey’s in South Minneapolis, where Kristin and her team make some of the best sandwiches we’ve had anywhere!

You can read some key excerpts from the PRWeek story below – and check out the full piece here (paywall).

Thank you to PRWeek for the recognition!

Key excerpts from PRWeek “up and coming” feature:

Launched in late 2024, over several turkey and Ruben sandwiches, Big Future Mission & Message turned the once-acquaintances into partners. They united through a belief in the power of business to create value for humanity — while also creating maximum value for employees and shareholders.

“The firm coalesced over a bunch of lunches, just talking about the state of the world, what it needs and where market opportunities are,” Raymond says. “We kept building together on those conversations until we had this, ‘let's do something’ [clarity].”

The firm launched in a challenging political and cultural environment for brands and companies. But the founders believe those that engage in proactive, focused and consistent advocacy gain advantages and lessen distractions.

“We came together around the sense of philosophical alignment,” Fetcher says. “Our goal is to help business leaders feel confident and secure in a political era that feels the opposite of that.”

Big Future is focused on manageable growth in 2025, explains Raymond.

“We're up against our own bandwidth and managing how and where we grow,” he says. “We've had a lot of interest from the small amount of our network we've tapped into. Our next phase [is focusing on] how we manage the flow of business coming in.”

In case you missed it last week, Sophie Benson’s deeply-reported new piece for UK sustainable fashion outlet Good On You explores the trend among fashion brands to align with President Trump (and, presumably, the consumer-voters who returned him to the White House). Her analysis is spot on, and relevant for any business or brand in fashion – or any other line of business:

Like fabrics or silhouettes, ideologies go in and out of style, and right now, brands are jumping on the short-term wins to be had from embracing a new and extreme political landscape. But they’re ignoring major long-term reputational and financial risks in the process.

We had a great time speaking with Sophie as she reported her article – and while we didn’t win the award for spiciest quotes (that goes to Jazmine Brown of Sustainable Baddie), the story contains important lessons for brand and business leaders of all stripes trying to navigate our current politics.

You can read a few key excerpts from Sophie’s story below – and we recommend you check out the full piece here. And please share on your networks to spread the message!

Today’s consumers want meaningful, not just memorable

At a time when cynicism has reached all-time highs and cheap copycats multiply, being memorable is no longer enough. Nobody wants a brand that dances to the daily discourse, pushed around by the wind. Being a wallflower is worse. Brands must connect meaningfully with culture and community, or they’ll lose relevance fast.

But lunging at the latest political flashpoint, trend, or figure is a great way to squander brand meaning fast. Instead, brand meaning is earned by deploying clear values, a worldview resonant in the public consciousness, and tangible action to pursue it – all rooted in your core business.

Key excerpts from Sophie’s story:

“Generally, politics has moved at a certain speed and pace: you’ll have an issue that’s in the conversation, and the people that care about it will want to address that. Today it’s quite different. Everything is moving so fast, and you have this deluge of changes happening without time for a broad national or global conversation. That’s added pressure on companies who are struggling to figure out where to show up and where to speak,” says Eric Raymond, co-founder of brand advocacy and business strategy agency, Big Future.

Of course, while a founder wearing a snarky t-shirt may reassure a brand’s core audience, it’s not going to change the bigger picture.

“Opposing Trump or any other political figure is not an advocacy position,” says fellow Big Future co-founder Adam Fetcher. Advocacy, he explains, is a brand going beyond the realm of making positive changes in its own supply chain and operations—such as sustainability efforts—and using its influence to advocate for social change and outcomes such as policy objectives, new industry standards, and cultural shifts. And a lot of it does—and should—happen behind the scenes.

There certainly are brands that are established with the explicit purpose of benefiting those outside their business. It’s a model known as stakeholder capitalism because it works for all stakeholders such as employees, supply chain workers, communities, and society rather than simply serving shareholders. But when advocacy for those stakeholders comes later down the line, positioning is crucial.

“You [as a for-profit brand] are never going to be the centrepiece of advocacy. A business or brand must always be in service to the frontline organisations who are advocating for change, representing the communities that are impacted the most by whatever the issue might be,” Fetcher continues. In the first instance, Big Future advises its clients that providing cash support is the most valuable action a brand can take, he says. From there, the agency identifies further opportunities including volunteerism, expert insight, and a brand lending its voice through statements and commentary. Advocacy can take many different shapes.

Beyond the primary benefits to the group, cause, or area a brand supports through its advocacy are internal business benefits. Consumer connection, building meaning into a brand, establishing trust, and market differentiation are all knock-on positive impacts of engaging in advocacy, Raymond and Fetcher explain. And despite the “anti-woke” backlash, it answers a still-high consumer expectation for businesses to take a stand on societal issues. Doing nothing won’t wash well—consumers want action.

Flocking to a divisive, dangerous political figure is the definition of short-termism. A brand may sweep up some new customers or avoid some tariffs, but the long-term impacts are far-reaching: erosion of trust, undermining core branding, reputational damage, and slashed brand value.

“Brands need to be thinking beyond any particular political moment or particular political figure. Short-term thinking is an ill and this is all about the willingness to think long term,” says Fetcher. “Are you in the Trump era? No, you’re in an era where you want your brand to succeed well beyond this moment.”

Last week, we spoke to Business of Fashion’s Sheena Butler-Young about how brands seeking to navigate Trump 2.0 (and beyond) should start by building a durable foundation for consistent action and advocacy – with a clear and focused agenda and message that fits each brand’s unique identity, product, and audience.

While now is absolutely the right time for brands to start building or refining their advocacy focal point and building a solid foundation of action, a good advocacy strategy will outlast any administration.

You can read some key excerpts from Sheena’s story below – and check out the full piece here (paywall).

Think unity, not “resistance”

One additional thought…

At Big Future, advocacy is not about brands joining “the resistance.” For most clients, our approach centers on the huge swaths of policy terrain with broad agreement among Americans, and a great opportunity in divisive times for brands to stand out by projecting optimistic, unifying messages that move and mobilize consumers, employees, and more.

After all, we all hear a lot from the vocal fringes in our discourse, but most Americans just want to see corporations actively promoting an economy that serves everyone, engaging on issues that make sense for that business, and doing so consistently. Getting stuck in reaction mode – on repeat – is a recipe for disaster.

Instead, it’s all about discovering the right issue for your brand, then stepping into it strategically to achieve dual benefit for your business and the movement you’re supporting. The tone, volume, and style of any brand’s approach advocacy should be as unique and differentiated as that brand. By simply engaging, you not only reduce the risk of being caught flat footed, but also set your brand further apart.

This work is exactly why we founded Big Future – to help brands feel confident and secure in a political era that’s anything but. And to ensure that confidence lasts far beyond the current moment.

Key excerpts from Sheena’s story:

Trump’s victory and the looming policy threats it brings — mass deportation, tariffs, and divisive stances on women’s, LGBTQ, and immigrant rights — are likely to create new pressure for fashion and beauty brands to rejoin the discourse. Whether they intend to speak up or stay out of it, brands and retailers need to be ready to explain that decision to their customers, experts say.

“We can draw on what we learned from Trump’s first term in office,” said Adam Fetcher, a former Patagonia executive who, along with former The North Face executive Eric Raymond, launched the brand agency Big Future this month to help brands effectively engage in politics.

“There will be plenty of flash points in the discourse and it behoves brands to start to focus on where their commitment lies,” he said. “Or your brand is at highest risk of turning into a negative flash point.”

There’s a difference between basic corporate social responsibility initiatives or ESG obligations — like paying fair wages, monitoring one’s climate impact or supply chain transparency — and true advocacy. Advocacy pushes brands to “step outside their sphere of direct influence” and actively support causes and policy-driven issues such as immigration, women’s and minority rights and education, said Fetcher, also a former senior official in the Obama administration.

“This can include providing financial support to organisations that are on the front lines, using creative superpowers to create content, engage audiences, raise awareness and mobilise [people] through calls to action,” he said.

“The murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests is a prime example — in the aftermath, we saw every company under the sun looking at themselves and saying, ‘holy crap, we don’t have anything going on to point to here,’” said Fetcher.

The key for brands is to focus on one or two issues that resonate deeply with their employees and customers and work quietly but intentionally to build a track record of meaningful action, said Mark Lipton, professor at Parsons School of Design, corporate advisor, and author of Mean Men: The Perversion of America’s Self-Made Man. Donations to nonprofits, incentivising employee volunteerism or collaborations with grassroots organisations are examples.

“Don’t be opportunistic,” Lipton said.” This is not a moment to scurry about … but to look deeply within at what your vision is and what it’s telling you about what you stand for.”

Big thanks to PRWeek’s Diana Bradley for a really nice feature on Big Future’s public launch on Nov. 4, 2024.

Some key excerpts below – and you can read the full story here.

From PRWeek:

[Big Future] aims to help brands build credible, durable, consistent and focused platforms for advocacy that can “manifest in great headlines” about companies working on behalf of communities and showing commitment to issues, Fetcher explained. When done right, embracing advocacy “helps the business grow, helps the brand achieve greater health and increases the market potential,” said Fetcher. 

Big Future will focus on key areas including helping companies find their focus, engage more proactively with audiences and “create more participation” toward their advocacy efforts, Fetcher said.

“The vast majority of people want companies to help make society better,” said Raymond. “We see our role as helping them understand the actions they need to take and how to activate these advocacy platforms.”

“Some brands have never engaged in any form of impact or advocacy work ever before, and other brands have a long record of doing a lot of good stuff, but maybe it’s unfocused or scattered and they want to achieve greater focus, impact and brand and business benefit,” Fetcher said of the kinds of clients the firm is hoping to service.