Founder and Partner

Throughout his extensive career, Daryl has advised many of the largest and best brands in the world.  His groundbreaking book, Emotional Branding: How Successful Brands Gain the Irrational Edge, explores the new realities of building brands and his insightful approach that has helped so many companies and brands grow.

A colorful and engaging storyteller, Daryl speaks frequently on the power of insights and the critical need for marketers to change the way they think about how people think. He explains how research can lead us astray or help us to gain a competitive edge. "Most research discloses what happens," he says. "However, it often fails to reveal why it happens or the underlying emotional drivers, that are critical in creating an effective strategy." Daryl’s guiding mantra is The NINA Principle:—No Insight—No Advantage.

Passionate about learning and understanding more about how people think, Daryl is always reading a new book—more than one hundred each year. His voracious reading helps leverage recent breakthroughs in the social sciences to improve the consumer research process, tapping into the deeper underlying emotions and nonconscious motivations critical to revealing insights.

He could be described as a professor, detective, journalist, anthropologist and writer all rolled into one. "We're all avid thinkers here," he's said of his team. "There's a genuine curiosity, a persistent desire to discover deeper insights that we all share in common."

Daryl and his wife Donnita extend his continuous learning passion as active members of Chicago’s philanthropic community, volunteering time and resources to support education and literacy programs for underprivileged children throughout the city.