Marketing consultant, Fractional CMO, brand strategy, energetic speaker, foodie, soccer player, and proud Dad

I’m passionate about marketing and building brands, and that energy is evident from the first moment of interaction. My approach combines curiosity with strategic thinking and creative solutions to help businesses stand out and grow through effective marketing.

With over 20 years of experience, I’ve led transformative projects across diverse industries, including technology, medtech, consumer goods, and professional services—serving both B2C and B2B clients. In 2012, I founded Common Giant, where I helped companies harness branding as a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.

Throughout my career, I’ve worked client-side managing retail stores up to $52MM in revenue, served as VP of Brand Strategy on the agency side, launched an agency with global clients, and acted as a fractional CMO for multiple businesses. My experience spans branding, marketing strategy, and creative execution across a variety of business models.

"The guy you want in the room." - Former coworker.

I believe in these four core principles:

1 - Marketing is a business practice. 
It’s not just about promotion. Marketing is a series of levers to pull for higher profits.

2 - Know the customer as much as you know yourself.
Understand what, how, and where your customers buy to serve them best.

3 - Grow the orchard while you sell the fruit.
Focus on long-term brand growth while capitalizing on immediate sales.

4 - Boring is expensive.
Mediocre marketing is forgettable, less effective, and costs more in the long run.

Beyond my work with brands, I'm an enthusiastic keynote speaker, delivering engaging talks on branding, marketing, creative problem-solving in business, and effective marketing strategies to audiences of all sizes.

Phillip Oakley

Every time I talk with a brand or web designer, the same problem comes up.

A client hires you to design their brand or website. But somewhere along the way, they expect you to write the copy too. Headlines. Taglines. About pages. Social media captions. All of it.

This is work you didn't sign up for.

Then it gets worse. They ask if you can handle their social media. Ongoing design work that needs captions and messaging—messaging they either don't provide or what they give you isn't good. And now that weak copy is affecting your design. The whole project suffers because of something that was never supposed to be your job.

You're a designer. You should be focused on what you do best: the visuals. The design.

Instead of trying to do everything yourself, work with someone who can help you get the messaging right—at a rate that makes sense for your projects.

When you partner with me, you increase the value of what you offer. We work together to create consistent messaging across brand guidelines, social media, websites, emails—every touchpoint your client needs.

Consistent messaging creates clarity. Clarity builds trust. Trust drives action.

When the words match the quality of your design, the entire brand system works better. Your clients see the difference. And so do their customers.

You focus on the visuals. I focus on the words. We work in parallel so your projects don't slow down.

If you're tired of doing work you didn't sign up for—and you want to start delivering complete brand systems without the extra work—let's talk. Send me a DM!

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The Battle

Phillip Oakley

Pooja Arshanapally

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