Both have experience with agencies and as marketers. Schunker has led marketing at Samsung and Eargo since Coke, while Roth also has been an executive at PayPal and Ogilvy before building the U.S. operation of consulting firm BeenThereDoneThat.
Increasingly the best thinkers in marketing are now working as independent consultants, Roth said, while staffing at the consulting giants is increasingly junior. So The Actionists is drawing on a stable of other veteran CMOs, chief strategists and creative leaders, about 10 from each discipline, who work as a confederation with the group rather than as full-time staffers. But Roth said The Actionists is not another fractional CMO firm or creative temp agency, aiming instead at helping develop plans that company staff or agencies can run with.
The firm has an à la carte menu of deliverables, such as growth audits, brand architectures, innovation platforms and core creative ideas, that can be bought independently or as a package, but at an agreed-upon upfront price, Roth said. Through a partnership with Evergreen Trading, client firms also can trade distressed assets in return for Actionists consulting work.
“Difficult problems require people who have solved them before,” said Parul Bharadwaj, managing director of oral care at Colgate-Palmolive, in a statement. “The Actionists bring us the strategic chops to answer complex business problems because they've been in our shoes.”