Jim Fairbrother is a widely respected authority on branding and marketing. His experience ranges from advising Fortune 500 companies
on integrated branding to helping start-ups create and launch new brands in a wide variety of business, consumer and industry categories.
A creative thinker, strategist and writer, Fairbrother has helped leading companies and organizations re-brand and re-energize for more than
two decades as head of his own firm.
Fairbrother has held senior positions in marketing and advertising on both client and agency sides. He started his career writing the backs of
paperback books for Pocket Books, and eventually became Director of Advertising and Promotion for Simon & Schuster, and held similar positions
at William Morrow & Company and Random House.
The lure of larger marketing challenges prompted his leap from books
into advertising. Fairbrother joined the New York firm of Jameson Advertising as copywriter, working on the agency's roster of publishing clients, and
eventually rose to vice president, creative director, where he was responsible for growing the agency beyond its traditional base. He subsequently
acquired Jameson, becoming President in 1985. Within two years he tripled the agency's revenues, developing new accounts in a variety of categories
previously untapped by the agency, including Canon cameras, Finnair, Samsung electronics, Weight Watchers, Panasonic, and The New York Public Library.
Fairbrother also served a number of prominent publishing clients including The New York Times Company, Macmillan, Random House, Hearst, Simon & Schuster,
and Forbes.
A decade ago Fairbrother moved his firm to Chatham, New York, where he has developed and renewed such prominent regional brands as Kinderhook Bank,
CDPHP, Hudson Valley Community College, Columbia County Department of Tourism, Adelphi University, the Albany Institute of History & Art, the Multiple
Myeloma Research Foundation, and the New York State Department of Education's Summer Reading program.
Recently Fairbrother developed and launched two new companies, one dedicated to identifying and developing a brand's distinctive sounds.
Soundbrand™ has a proprietary sound audit that can be used to assess a brand's existing sounds and leverage the greatest
opportunity for a unique sound signature for aural marketing applications. The other, the technology innovation firm Flow Media,
is developing voice-command technologies for the travel and hospitality marketplace.
He has been honored with the American Marketing Association's Mark of Excellence Award, has won numerous regional, national and international
advertising creative awards, and is a three-time recipient of the Silver Microphone, honoring the nation's most creative radio advertising.
The Fairbrother firm has volunteered widely for various non-profit organizations, performing pro bono services for the Pittsfield Prevention
Partnership, Berkshire Theatre Festival, the Village of Chatham, and many others.
Jim Fairbrother serves on the boards of the Columbia County Habitat for Humanity, Hudson Opera House, the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce and
is a past board member of the Chatham Film Club.
He also serves as an adjunct professor of branding and marketing at The Lally School of Management & Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
in Troy, N.Y. He lives with his wife Ivy Coté in Canaan, N.Y., and is a passionate fan of baseball, movies, and music. He can often be seen driving one
or more of his four children all over creation. And back.