Sam McNerney

Who am I?

• Founder, McNerney Insights & Marketing

• Minnesota-Born & Raised, Brooklyn-Based

Experience

• Publicis North America, 2015-2020

• Simon & Schuster, 2012-2013

Career Stuff

  • Hired by Publicis North American; established and grew first behavioral science unit within Publicis NA.

  • Sold research solutions to global brands (P&G, Walmart, Citibank).

  • Founded McNerney Insight & Marketing in 2020.

  • Began providing survey-based solutions and research consulting to e-commerce brands (Hydrant, Sleep Easy, Smoking Outlet), and survey technology platforms (Enquire Labs, Quartr).

Writing & Speaking

Favorite Podcasts

🎤Lex Fridman

🎤Very Bad Wizards

🎤Making Sense

Favorite Books

📘Antifragile (Taleb)

📘Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman)

📘Ficciones (Borges)

📘Essays (Montaigne) 

Say Hi

• Email: sam@sammcnerney.com

The Full Story

In 2011, I became captivated by the idea that small changes in context and language could have a big impact (i.e., nudging). So I started a blog dedicated to behavioral science. A few years later, I got a break and was hired by Simon & Schuster to launch and manage a publication, 250Words.com. I reviewed top business and psychology books, and interviewed authors including Arianna Huffington, Andrew Yang, Walter Isaacson, Charles Murray, and many more. In 9 months, I was able to generate 7k email subs and 400k page views.

Next, the creative agency Publicis New York, where I fell into the world of market research. At Publicis, I founded a two-person behavioral science team. We sold research projects to Publicis clients (P&G, Walmart, Citibank), other agencies within Publicis Groupe (Saatch & Saatchi, Publicis Sapient), and played a role in various New Business pitches. At Publicis, I feel in love with the idea that a few smart questions — combined with a compelling data visualization and smart recommendations — could generate value for clients.

In 2020, I moved on to Flamingo Group (Omnicom), an insight agency grounded in qualitative services, where I built a quantitative solutions offering. Then COVID hit. I doubled down on the chaos and established McNerney Insights & Marketing, which turned out to be the best decision I’ve made. Today, I get to combine everything I know about data, research, marketing and content to help CPG brands find and test key benefit claims, value proposition, or positioning statement that work.