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Daniel Pankraz
Founder & Chief Strategist at OPEN Brand Consulting - ex AKQA, BBH, iris, DDB - Brand strategy x innovation X CX
Professional Background
Daniel Pankraz is a globally renowned Brand, Digital, and Innovation Strategist with an impressive track record spanning over two decades. Currently serving as the Head of Strategy & Innovation at Leo Burnett Australia, he plays a crucial role in leading the agency's business design consultancy and strategy practice. Leo Burnett is recognized as Australia’s 4th most innovative company and was ranked 9th in creativity by Gunn Report, making it a significant player in the advertising space. Through his leadership, Daniel has significantly contributed to new business achievements, collaborating with clients such as Suncorp, Emirates, Red Rooster, Oporto, Uber, and Sweat, while also expanding the Vitasoy brand's reach.
Daniel's expertise lies in helping brands innovate and shape popular culture. He was also the lead strategist behind the Nike Europe account while at AKQA London, where he drove digital innovation and social membership strategies across the brand's extensive portfolio. This power to influence has seen him become a celebrated thought leader in the marketing landscape, sharing insights at multiple conferences and shaping the future of brand communication.
Education and Achievements
Daniel holds an academic foundation in Commerce, Marketing, Finance, and Psychology from the prestigious University of New South Wales (UNSW). Further enhancing his strategic capabilities, he also studied Service Design at Academy Xi. His unique blend of education equips him with a profound understanding of consumer behavior, brand dynamics, and market trends, enabling him to devise innovative marketing strategies.
In his rich career, Daniel has crafted globally awarded campaigns for some of the world's leading brands including adidas, Google, YouTube, Emirates, McDonald’s, Lynx/Axe, Sega, Gatorade, and Volvo. Notably, he was the mastermind behind Google’s “Build with Chrome,” celebrated as the 4th most awarded digital campaign according to the Gunn Report, and he was instrumental in the Christchurch Reimagined project. His commitment to excellence in brand strategy and creative solutions has earned him more than 50 global awards, including recognition at Cannes, Effies, APAC Effies, One Show, Spikes, D&AD, Clio, APG, and ADMA Awards, boasting a remarkable 90% new business conversion rate over the past seven years.
Key Roles and Contributions
His impressive career has taken him to various prestigious communication agencies, where he held critical positions that shaped his extensive portfolio. Some of his key roles include:
- Founder & Chief Strategist at OPEN Brand Consulting
- Former Head of Brand Experience Consulting at Leo Burnett Australia
- Former Head of Brand Strategy & Innovation and Strategic Innovations Director at Leo Burnett
- Regional Head of Strategy, APAC at iris worldwide
- Co-Head of Brand Strategy and Head of Digital Strategy at M&C Saatchi
- Strategic Client Partner-Nike Europe at AKQA
- Planning Director at DDB Sydney with a focus on youth marketing
- Senior Strategic Planner roles at Clemenger BBDO, Naked Communications, BBH New York, Global Brand Planner at Euro RSCG New York, and Planner at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney.
Daniel's work revolves around experience design, youth marketing, brand strategy, cultural positioning, sports marketing, creative strategy, and digital/social strategy, among others. His expertise in these areas has made him a trusted advisor to brands looking to connect deeply with their audiences.
Speaking Engagements and Thought Leadership
As a recognized expert in the industry, Daniel has been invited to share his insights and perspectives at high-profile events, including Spikes Asia, Mumbrella 360, and various youth marketing and social media conferences. His thought-provoking speeches and presentations have spurred discussions in the marketing community, further solidifying his reputation as a leading voice in brand strategy and innovation.
As the founder of OPEN Brand Consulting, Daniel continues to help brands navigate the complexities of modern marketing, ensuring they not only survive but thrive in today’s competitive environments. His leadership and strategic foresight empower brands to create meaningful connections with consumers, encapsulating the essence of cutting-edge marketing practices.
Achievements
- 22 years of experience as a brand strategist, having worked in Sydney, New York City, London, and Asia.
- Over 50 global awards, including notable recognitions at Cannes, APAC Effies, D&AD, Clio, and Spikes.
- Key figure in campaigns for high-profile brands like Nike, Google, and adidas leading to transformative results in brand positioning and cultural impact.
- Transformational insights in youth marketing hailed by industry peers and leading brands.
- Established authority in digital innovation, especially in building platforms and driving consumer engagement through meaningful digital experiences.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.