David Gray's Linkedin Analytics

Ever wondered what you’d get if you mixed a strategist from the boardroom with an artist from the rehearsal room? The Short: I’m a seasoned strategist with the artistic sensibilities of a working dramaturg, who helps brands, content, and art grow through richer storytelling. The Long: As an experienced marketing strategist and trained dramaturg, I bridge the ‘creative’ and ‘industry’ of the creative industries. This unique blend of business acumen and artistic ability has led to work with some of the world’s largest brands (Pepsi, McDonald's, Australia), the most zeitgeist-y of entertainment properties (Married At First Sight, Stranger Things, Empire), leading content platforms (Spotify, TikTok, YouTube) and theatre businesses and productions, in Australia and the US. Ok, strategist hat on. My strategy practice centres on imagining bold, new futures for businesses and brands, and shepherding them there. My work is less sketching out rough blueprints and emailing them across with thoughts and prayers; it is building out actual roadmaps to ensure the work, works. A diverse professional background means a diverse toolkit to work from, and mine sees me forge paths to fresh ideas, solutions and audience insight across all my strategy work. *Costume quick-change* Dramaturg hat. My dramaturgical practice is anchored in creating ‘intentionally holistic’ stories for audiences. WTF? Fair. Essentially, in my practice, I weave stories of the stage and screen wider than they traditionally go, ensuring everything an audience experiences – both on the screen/stage and off - is treated with the same dramaturgical care and consideration. I believe that if it's part of their experience, it's a part of our story. Ensuring every element of an audience's experience is connected through intention is core to my practice, and this is how I dramaturg across theatre, TV, and film. The Now: In 2024, I built my own world - Small Planet Studios. It’s a haven for projects that want to successfully blend the commercial with the creative, needing me to wear both my strategy and dramaturgy hats, sometimes at the same time - I know, how corporately kinky! The studio's offerings are outlined below. If you want to chat strategy, stories, or anything that orbits those universes, slide on in to my DMs.