“Molson Coors’ chief marketing officer, Michelle St. Jacques, famously took the reins at the beer giant a day after Anheuser-Busch ran multiple Super Bowl ads blasting Miller and Coors for using corn syrup as a fermentation base in their beer—something that experts argue is irrelevant to the final product. It was amid the flurry of those first few days as CMO in 2019 that she met DDB Worldwide’s chief creative officer, Ari Weiss. 

St. Jacques and Weiss hit it off immediately. Talking to them both now, it’s no surprise to learn that they’ve spent the last two years in near-constant contact. Over the course of our 40-minute conversation about building a fruitful agency-client relationship, they were constantly jumping in to finish one another’s sentences, expand on an idea or add another anecdote about the chaos of 2020. 

“We really quickly recognized that we had similar visions, or ambitions, or desires on how to build brands that people will actually talk about, and how to build brands with purpose,” St. Jacques said. The intensity of the moment meant that having a creative partner with an almost inherent understanding really allowed them to hit the ground running. 

“We were under such a tough moment, kind of being under attack,” she explained. The circumstance “microwaved” her relationship with Weiss and DDB, she said, building trust in record time and allowing them to jump straight into action.”

Read more on Adweek.