Mildred Mae is a brand strategy practice that finds the unexpected connections that earn a brand its way in.
Human behavior, culture, evidence, instinct, and operational reality, read as one system. Starting from who people actually are, and ending at what the brand is willing to prove it stands for.
Lateral by nature. ◆ Human-first by principle. ◆ AI-amplified by design. ◆ Multi-disciplinary by training.
The stated problem is usually only part of the problem.
I stay with the question long enough to find the contradiction, behavior, assumption, or connection that changes the read.
THE BRIEF TELLS US WHERE TO START, NOT WHERE TO STOP.
THE METHODExcavate the Pattern. Alchemize the Meaning. Clarify the Role.
01 / InvestigativeExcavate the Pattern
Pressure-test the intuition, complicate the evidence, and keep digging until the underlying pattern is defensible.
What is actually true?
02 / InterpretiveAlchemize the Meaning
Read the signals in relationship to one another until facts become a tension, a reframing, or a strategic thesis.
Why does it matter?
03 / DecisiveClarify the Role
Define the role the brand has the credibility, permission, and willingness to prove in the real world.
How should the brand act?
The work is iterative by design, and moves between evidence and instinct, psychology and behavior, brand ambition and operational reality.
the povPattern recognition over template recognition.
Frameworks can be useful for organizing thinking.
But the most interesting part is often the relationship between things that were never meant to be examined together.
Different minds make different work.
Lateral, multidisciplinary, neurodivergent thinking changes what gets noticed.
Faster and deeper.
Receipts, not vibes.
Strategy earns its value through what it explains, changes, enables, or produces.
founder's note
ELISABETH BROMBERG ◆ Brand marketer with 17+ years of resonant, category-defining expertise across brand, social, and creative strategy.
Everything I do starts with a stubborn curiosity about why we choose the things we choose, and how we find connection in a loud world.
“
I built Mildred Mae as a home for that curiosity. My neurodivergent brain processes the world in constellations rather than straight lines — moving between human behavior, culture, evidence, instinct, and operational reality to see what changes when they are considered together.
That way of seeing is the work: making complexity legible and the next move clear, grounded in what makes people experience belonging, and what a brand is willing to prove.
Mildred Mae is named for my two grandmothers — Florence Mildred and Gloria Mae — who both crossed the world to belong somewhere.
Read the namesake story →
THE RECEIPTS
The method, caught in the act.
Strategy judged by what it explains, changes, enables, or produces.
See more of the work →
EVOFEM · PHEXXIPHARMAFrom product education to putting the control back in birth control.
+ 94%
new prescriptions in six weeks
L’ORÉAL · KIEHL’S SINCE 1851One global brand. One global voice. 40+ markets. Two award-winning campaigns.
+ 40%
organic reach YoY
BEAUTYLIGARE GATHERINGSFour truths, one brand system. And a custom-built AI tool that keeps the strategy running.
- 81%
PRE-SEED START-UPcost-per-result
Agency-side / In-house ◆ Global / North America
BREADTH
&
Brand Strategy ◆ Social & Engagement Strategy ◆ Creative Strategy ◆ Research & Insights ◆ Measurement & KPI Design ◆ AI Strategy, Workflows, & Custom Tools ◆ Organizational Design for Integrated Teams
DEPTH
Beauty ◆ Luxury ◆ CPG ◆ Consumer Healthcare ◆ Pharma ◆ Food & Beverage ◆ Alcohol & Spirits ◆ Tech ◆ Early-stage Businesses
what is it that you say you do here?The questions rarely stay in one lane. Neither does the work.
Embedded Strategy Partner
Ongoing senior brand, social, and creative strategy inside the work — without adding another full-time layer. The scope can move with questions, from counsel and decision-making to hands-on follow-through.
BEST FOR // EVOLVING PRIORITIES AND SUSTAINED CHANGE
Focused Strategy Engagements
One defined problem, answered all the way through: rethinking measurement, clarifying positioning, rebuilding a content system, reframing an audience, or resolving a strategic decision.
BEST FOR // A SPECIFIC QUESTION THAT DESERVES AN INFORMED, DECISIVE ANSWER
Strategy-to-Activation Projects
Discovery, strategy, playbook, hands-on implementation, and full team hand-off — built as one connected engagement rather than a deck handed off at the midpoint.
BEST FOR // TURNING A STRATEGIC ANSWER INTO SOMETHING THE TEAM CAN USE AND REPLICATE
Workshops & Trainings
Facilitated sessions designed to produce a decision, direction, or shared operating language (not simply a room full of sticky notes.)
BEST FOR // ALIGNMENT THAT HAS TO LEAD SOMEWHERE
Research & Discovery
Standalone excavation into audiences, categories, culture, behavior, evidence, and the assumptions underneath the brief.
BEST FOR // MAKING SURE THE TEAM IS SOLVING THE RIGHT PROBLEM
Team & Organizational Design
Team structure, roles, responsibilities, workflows, and operating rhythms designed around how the work actually gets done.
BEST FOR // WHEN THE WORK HAS CHANGED BUT THE TEAM STRUCTURE HAS NOT
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
THE WRITING
Thinking out loud, in public.
Unexpected Insights is where the questions keep moving after the brief ends: AI, culture, cognition, and the systems beneath what looks obvious.
The ADHD Brain on AI
01Truth in Tension: Why Complexity Matters in an Age of Absolutism
02Self-Sabotaging Innovation: The Art of Doing Dumb Shit
03Co-authored with Matt Klein for ZINE, his cultural intelligence Substack with 1M+ readers in 150+ countries. Published in 2024; still the #1 most-read essay on ZINE.