Creating Client Partnerships with Stacey Zimmerman

On Brand with Nick Westergaard

Stacey Zimmerman serves as Managing Director at Big Spaceship, where she focuses on deepening client relationships, growing the agency at large, and leading the Account Management discipline. Her passion lies in helping client partners work collaboratively with their agency partners, underscoring how collaboration leads to the most impactful work. We discussed all of this and more this week on the On Brand podcast.

About Stacey Zimmerman

Stacey Zimmerman serves as Managing Director at Big Spaceship, where she focuses on deepening client relationships, growing the agency at large, and leading the Account Management discipline. Her passion lies in helping client partners work collaboratively with their agency partners, underscoring how collaboration leads to the most impactful work. Nurturing diverse teams, Stacey helps provide education and opportunities to aspiring talent by teaching advertising at both East and West Coast universities for the past decade, serving as executive sponsor for one of Big Spaceship’s employee resource groups (ERGs), and serving as a MAIP mentor.

In her five years at Big Spaceship, Stacey has grown the agency’s relationship with Starbucks from a project to AOR, expanding into the loyalty and partnerships space while also helping mount a multi-chaptered brand campaign. Recently, she helped launch Fast Twitch, a new energy drink from PepsiCo, with a holistic campaign and on-the-ground Super Bowl activation. Her experience also includes digital product work; for example, Stacey helped SiriusXM develop a brand new website that made for an entirely revamped experience both for customers and internal marketing teams. Current and past clients include Google, Hasbro, MasterClass, and NFL, among other brands.

Prior to Big Spaceship, Stacey worked at a variety of agencies within the Publicis Groupe network on integrated campaigns for brands including P&G, J&J, Veuve Clicquot, Sally Hansen, Visa, and Google. Stacey has also developed an expertise in the tech space, developing sites, apps, and digital campaigns for clients such as Mercedes-Benz and COTY.

Episode Highlights

Building successful partnerships with clients. “It's a constant conversation,” Stacey notes. “You also have to set up imperfection — that we might change our mind along the way and that's okay.”

“I sometimes forget that you don't work here,” Stacey loves hearing this from clients. Again, this is indicative of the close partnerships she believes in building rather than account management.

We need a better label ... Stacey notes that though she's a big believer in the account management discipline, it's a limiting label. She promises to keep us posted on what she and the team comes up with!

What brand has made Stacey smile recently? Stacey began with a big shoutout to all of the amazing Barbie work before sharing the story of Orange and an AI-generated women's soccer ad.

To learn more, check out the Big Spaceship website and connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Until next week, I’ll see you on the Internet!

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