brand-advocacy
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Marc Paulenich and the distance between being seen and being believed
A summer job in Toledo became a career in understanding why people care. Now Hart’s CEO is putting two decades of strategy work into a book about moving audiences from apathy to advocacy.
CRIMSON Outgrew a Famous Name. Then It Put Purpose on the Door.
Born from a Detroit anchorman's newsroom instincts, CRIMSON spent three decades learning that a famous name can become a ceiling. Its answer was a sharper promise: fix the brand before buying the megaphone.
Chris Heaton Put Purpose Before Promotion - and Gave a Detroit Agency a New Name
After 25 years inside one communications firm, Chris Heaton helped buy it, rename it and hand more authority to the people around him. His operating idea is simple enough to fit on a label: find the purpose first; promotion comes later.
Duel Tech
Duel is a London-founded B2B SaaS company that runs a Brand Advocacy Platform, helping consumer retail brands recruit, activate and scale tens of thousands of customers, creators, fans, employees and ambassadors into a measurable word-of-mouth growth channel. Founded in 2017 by adventurer-turned-entrepreneur Paul Archer and games developer Naio Tsarouchis, and certified as a B Corp, Duel powers advocacy programs for brands including Charlotte Tilbury, Lush, ELEMIS, Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch and Pandora, and raised a $16M Series A in September 2025.
Paul Archer
Paul Archer is the founder and CEO of Duel, a London-based brand advocacy SaaS platform that helps global brands like Charlotte Tilbury, Lush, ELEMIS, Victoria's Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch turn customers, creators and fans into a measurable growth channel. Before software, Archer drove a 1992 London black cab around the world, breaking two Guinness World Records and writing a best-selling book about it. He co-founded Duel in 2017 with viral games developer Naio Tsarouchis; the company raised a $16M Series A in September 2025 co-led by Molten Ventures and Bright Pixel.