Born Good
helps brands
scale without
losing their
soul.

Greatness is what happens when good survives contact with scale. Born Good is an independent strategy practice for those who refuse to lose their soul in the race to grow. We help companies find, tell, and manage their brand's true story, to turn foundational good into sustainable growth.

Services

Finding, Telling
& Managing Your Brand's True Story

A brand's soul is not a cosmetic tagline or purpose pledge. It is the company's core truth made manifest through everything it sells, says, and does. We provide the strategic rigor to find it, tell it, and manage it as it grows.

01

Finding Your
Brand's True Story

Our approach peels back the noise, bias, and complexity of the marketplace to reveal the four foundational truths that define your brand's inherent value: customer, category, cultural, and company truths.

A story rooted in only one or two truths risks being either culturally preachy with no company grounding, self-promotional with no cultural relevance, or forgettable with no differentiation from the category. So ultimately our goal is to find and craft a True Brand Story that is relevant, different, credible, and timely.

Example Outputs

Brand NarrativesBrand PurposesBrand PositioningsValue PropositionsTalent PropositionsMessaging ArchitecturesVisions, Missions & Values

02

Telling Your
Brand's True Story

Once the brand's true story is crafted, the next step is telling that story. This is perhaps the most critical step, where creative expression plays a significant role. The brand's story needs to be communicated in a way that resonates with its audience, using a tone and style that reflects the brand's personality.

It's important that the story is told consistently across all platforms, whether on the company's website, through social media, in advertising, or even through packaging. Each touchpoint with consumers is an opportunity to reinforce the brand's narrative and deepen the consumer's connection to the brand.

Example Outputs

Brand BooksDesign BriefsCreative BriefsBrand BlueprintsConnection PlansCustomer CommsContent StrategiesCampaign Playbooks

03

Managing Your Brand's True Story

Managing the brand's story is an ongoing process that requires vigilance and adaptability. As markets evolve and new competitors emerge, the brand may need to adjust its narrative without losing its core identity.

This involves continuously monitoring how the story is received by the audience and making adjustments based on feedback and changing circumstances. It also means keeping the story alive and fresh, finding new ways to retell it, and new platforms to tell it on.

Importantly, as the brand grows and potentially diversifies, it's crucial that the story evolves in a way that remains true to the brand's core values and origins. This might mean highlighting new achievements or innovations, or perhaps revisiting and reinforcing the foundational elements of the brand's narrative during a major anniversary
or ahead of a significant launch.

Example Outputs

Brand ArchitecturesMeasurement PlansLearning AgendasBrand Health Studies

Kindred

Six kinds of clients who refuse to slay their soul.

Scaling Idealists

Successful startups that were founded on a clear mission, but are now facing rapid expansion, VC pressure, or mass-market adoption. They are terrified that scaling up means selling out. And they need strategic guardrails to ensure their culture survives the operational chaos of growth.

Founder-Led Transitioners

Companies where the founder's personal values are the brand, but the business is now too big for the founder to manage every detail. They need to codify the founder's soul into a strategy that the rest of the organization can execute.

Premium Purists

Higher-priced lifestyle brands whose price point justifies an obsession with sourcing, ethics, and craftsmanship. Their entire business model relies on the claim to quality and zero corners cut. They need help articulating this value to defend their premium positioning against cheaper competitors.

Challenger B-Corps

Certified B-Corps or social enterprises that want to win on product superiority, not just charity. They are tired of being the "nice" option and want to be the winning option. They need to turn their ethical credentials into a competitive advantage that steals market share from incumbents.

Asset Guardians

PE firms that have recently acquired a founder-led, high-culture, or purpose-driven brand with the intent to scale it for a 3-5 year exit. They know how to optimize operations and supply chains, but they need help to preserve the magic, and ensure that their operational efficiencies don't accidentally kill their golden goose.

Turnaround Giants

Established brands that have lost their way and are trying to return to their roots to reconnect with modern, conscious consumers. They need an external partner to help them rediscover the goodness they were born with, now buried under years of purpose drift.

Founder

Gordon Gerard McLean
FormerlyGlobal Head of Strategy | AppleGroup Strategy Director | BBDOStrategy Director | JWT
Career25+ years at the intersection of culture & commerce in Sheffield, London, Istanbul, New York, and Cupertino, CA.
Based InLos Angeles, CA

Gordon Gerard McLean

Founder & Principal Strategist

Originally from Dublin, Gordon has spent 25+ years at the intersection of culture and commerce as a brand and creative strategy leader at companies in Sheffield, London, Istanbul, New York, and Cupertino, CA.

Most recently he served as the Global Head of Strategy for Mac, Values & Markets at Apple, where he learned firsthand what it takes to scale a brand in sync with its soul.

Now based in LA, as the Founder & Principal Strategist of Born Good, he helps agency, start-up, and marketing leaders turn their foundational good into sustainable growth.

Past partnerships include

Activia · Apple · Bacardi · Bank of Scotland · Bing · Bombay Sapphire · EA Games · GE · Gillette · Google · Grey Goose · Guinness · Halifax · Hilton · Holiday Inn · HSBC · Olay · Perfect Day · Radisson · Sandy Hook Promise · SAP · ServiceNow · Vodafone · Wells Fargo · Yerba Madre

Accolades

ARF · Cannes Lions · D&AD · Effies · Emmys · IPA · Jay Chiats · One Show · TED

Some Kind Words

"Inspiring, inventive and brilliant, Gordon is a planner who truly has no peer. His is a style that is rigorous and romantic, substantive and seductive, visionary and detail-oriented. Clients, creatives, account folk, and planners want to work with him, because they know he's the real deal; an absolute original in every way."

Anna Schneider-Mayerson

Director of Innovation, Fahrenheit 212

"Gordon is a true big brain. He and I have worked on tough business challenges together in a broad range of industries and he is a rare strategist for sure. One who can elevate his thinking to a macro, world view and then zoom in on the tiniest detail to bring it to life. He's a brilliant partner for anyone looking to elevate their strategy, prove the worth of a brand, or connect thinking from brand through demand in a complex system."

Jim Lesser

SVP Chief Brand Officer, ServiceNow

"Gordon McLean is to planning what Jimi Hendrix is to guitarists. That is to say, working with him truly is 'The Gordon McLean Experience!' While most planners can attach big, highbrow thinking to complex business problems, Gordon offers thinking that is refreshingly simple and intuitive. And that's the reason he makes his mark so quickly, so often. He's a brilliant simplifier, passionate thinker, and a great partner."

Ben Griffiths

EMEA Program Strategy Lead, Meta

"Gordon combines high intellect and creativity with the strong forward thinking of a great planner. He has a unique way of distilling complexity into inspiring insights. He's detailed and original, with a thirst for culture, and a passion for brands like no other."

Kostas Karanikolas

Creative Director, BBDO New York

"Gordon is one of the most gifted planners I have ever worked with. His passion for the craft and his high standards makes it a real pleasure to work with him, and see him in operation. You always walk away knowing more."

Tony Effik

Managing Director, Google

Partners

A network you can trust with your brand.

Basura

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Basura is a strategic and creative partner completing projects end-to-end: from concise creative strategy, through creative, production, and distribution.

Capuchin

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Capuchin helps brands be more persuasive, based on how human mental processes work, by developing nudges based on our psychological traits to shift behavior.

Fabric

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Fabric is the leading platform for quick-turn, video-based qualitative market research for messaging and product design studies.

Forage

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Forage uses AI to help brands understand the world more deeply, not generate endless imitations of it. They decode how culture is visually expressed, so brand builders can respond with ideas that are grounded in truth.

Props

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Props is a performance-based content platform that delivers new customers to their clients. Supported by their proprietary technology they combine the attraction of creator content with the precision of paid media to produce exceptional results.

Public-Library

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Founded in 2011 in Los Angeles, Public-Library is the practice of Ramón Coronado and Marshall Rake. Public-Library is a design first creative studio that partners with tone setting brands and clients in music, sport and fashion to move culture forward.

RECE

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RECE is a creative company built for brands that need to grow now, not next year. They solve for speed and the gap where the traditional agency model fails: a lack of deep emotional understanding of the audience.

System1

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System1 predicts sales and brand impact, and gives companies the confidence to invest in ideas that people truly feel, for real commercial gain.

Tracksuit

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Tracksuit has reimagined brand tracking to make it easy, actionable, and affordable for modern marketers at businesses in every growth stage. Their dashboard-first solution helps marketers transform brand metrics into clear, compelling narratives that prove marketing impact and secure buy-in for continued investment.

Let's Talk

Ready to scale in
sync with your soul?

Every great engagement begins with a single honest conversation. Tell us where you are and where you want to be.