Brands Are Like People
The ones with a distinct voice and the skills to match — those true characters with an essence you can almost trademark — they’re the ones you remember forever.
Muhammad Ali didn’t just throw the best punch. His persona was unrivaled as well. And that’s why everybody on Earth knew him. At Unknowns, we want to ensure brands rise above the rest, preventing them from being ignored or lost in the shuffle. So yeah, be Muhammad Ali. Not Karl Mildenberger (some other championship boxer).
Set Yourself Apart
Or Be Invisible
About Us
Get To Unknow Yourself
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Our Belief
All brands sit on a stash of unknowns about themselves. Somewhere, nestled in their origins, beliefs, and idiosyncracies, is a story — a differentiating truth — that when properly unearthed, sets them apart and serves as a North Star for everything they do moving forward.
Our Job
We’re here to make the unknown known. To surface your brand’s underused or yet to be discovered uniqueness, and help you integrate it into your brand story, ethos, services, communications, products, and beyond.
Our Outcome
The results are never ordinary, because your unknowns are extraordinary. They’re authentic and ownable to your brand alone, since they were there all along. We’ll wake them up, invigorate them, and tap them to their fullest potential.
Our Enemy
We eschew lazy, generic thinking that hedges, mimics, or fails. Mediocre, middle-of-the-road mindsets never help a brand stand strong in the category or stand out from the competition. Our ethos is simple: Don’t just meet expectations. Defy them.
Get to Unknow Us
Nelson Freitas, Founder & CSO
I’m a brand strategist, modern marketer, and thought leader who believes in the power of brands to change the world.
I've been fortunate enough to work with, on, and for the globe’s most iconic brands, across every category. Levi’s, Apple, Google, Microsoft, you name it. For the past three decades, I’ve served as an advisor and visionary to Fortune 100 companies, helping them realize their unique potential, set themselves apart, and connect emotionally with their audiences. If Tony Robbins and Malcolm Gladwell fell in love and had a child who was dangerously obsessed with thoughtful and effective marketing, that child’s name would be Nelson Freitas. Nelson Freitas Robbins-Gladwell, to be exact.
What else. Oh, right. I spent the last 12 years as Chief Strategy Officer at both Omnicom and WPP, two of the world’s largest and most notable communications companies. I’ve lectured at Columbia University, NYU, the Wharton School of Business, and been a featured speaker at industry conferences like Cannes and CES.
I feel very lucky to have learned early on how powerful it can be when sharp insight, real craftsmanship, and top-shelf storytelling come together in service of a brand.
I love what I do. And I feel very grateful.
Kelly Stevens, Managing Director
I’m a hands-on agency leader who majors in new business, marketing and account management.
I’ve contributed to the growth of iconic brands across nearly every category throughout my career, and I'm most proud of my time as one of the first employees of three successful agency startups: FIG, Joan and L&C New York.
Most recently I was Chief Growth Officer at 22squared, leading new business and marketing for the independent creative and media agency. I also served as Managing Director at Spring Studios New York, held CMO positions at YARD NYC and The&Partnership, was Brand Director at FIG, spent seven years at Omnicom’s Merkley+Partners leading brand and retail communications for Mercedes-Benz, and served in account positions at Team One, Y&R, Ogilvy and TBWA\Chiat Day.
What I love most about our industry is the people – from the entrepreneurial spirit of Founders and the energy of the kids just out of college, to the seasoned experts and everyone in between. We all have something to teach each other, and what we make together when we’re at our best is magic.
The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”
Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities”