Mildred Mae is a brand strategy practice obsessed with finding the unexpected connections that earn a brand its way in.
Human behavior, culture, evidence, instinct, and operational reality, read as one system. Starting from who people actually are, and ending at what the brand is willing to prove it stands for.
Lateral by nature. ◆ Human-first by principle. ◆ AI-amplified by design. ◆ Multi-disciplinary by training.
The stated problem is usually only part of the problem.
I stay with the question long enough to find the contradiction, behavior, assumption, or connection that changes the read.
THE BRIEF TELLS US WHERE TO START, NOT WHERE TO STOP.
THE METHODExcavate the Pattern. Alchemize the Meaning. Clarify the Role.
01 / InvestigativeExcavate the Pattern
Pressure-test the intuition, complicate the evidence, and keep digging until the underlying pattern is defensible.
What is actually true?
02 / InterpretiveAlchemize the Meaning
Read the signals in relationship to one another until facts become a tension, a reframing, or a strategic thesis.
Why does it matter?
03 / DecisiveClarify the Role
Define the role the brand has the credibility, permission, and willingness to prove in the real world.
How should the brand act?
The work is iterative by design, and moves between evidence and instinct, psychology and behavior, brand ambition and operational reality.
Three moves that turn a stubborn curiosity about what people actually want into something a brand can act on.
THE RECEIPTS
The method, caught in the act.
EVOFEM · PHEXXIPHARMATHE INSIGHT“Women are stuck in a trap of acceptance about their own reproductive health.”
THE APPROACHFrom product education to putting the control back in birth control.
+ 94%
new prescriptions in six weeks
L’ORÉAL · KIEHL’S SINCE 1851THE PROBLEMA word-of-mouth brand with no global social function, and 60+ local markets, many with no social team at all.
THE APPROACHBuilt Kiehl’s first global social function, not a campaign, and put social in charge of the 360° work: the briefs, the agency, and the campaigns.
+ 40%
organic reach YoY
BEAUTYLIGARE GATHERINGS− 81%
PRE-SEED START-UPTHE INSIGHT“Everything built for belonging asks us to earn it instead of offering it.”
THE APPROACHFour truths, one brand system. And a custom-built AI tool that keeps the strategy running.
cost-per-result
the povPattern recognition over template recognition.
The most interesting part is often the relationship between things that were never meant to be examined together.
Different minds make different work.
Lateral, multidisciplinary, neurodivergent thinking changes what gets noticed.
Faster and deeper.
AI compounds thinking. It doesn’t replace human taste or judgment.
Receipts, not vibes.
Strategy earns its value through what it explains, changes, enables, or produces.
FOUNDER’S NOTE
ELISABETH BROMBERG ◆ Brand marketer with 17+ years across brand, social, and creative strategy.
Everything I do starts with a stubborn curiosity about why we choose the things we choose, and how we find connection in a loud world.
“
I built Mildred Mae as a home for that curiosity. My neurodivergent brain processes the world in constellations rather than straight lines.
That way of seeing is the work: making complexity legible and the next move clear, grounded in what makes people experience belonging.
Mildred Mae is named for my two grandmothers — Florence Mildred and Gloria Mae — who both crossed the world to belong somewhere.
Read the namesake story →
Agency-side / In-house ◆ Global / North America
BREADTH
&
Brand Strategy ◆ Social & Engagement Strategy ◆ Creative Strategy ◆ Research & Insights ◆ Measurement & KPI Design ◆ AI Strategy, Workflows, & Custom Tools ◆ Organizational Design for Integrated Teams
DEPTH
Beauty ◆ Luxury ◆ CPG ◆ Consumer Healthcare ◆ Pharma ◆ Food & Beverage ◆ Alcohol & Spirits ◆ Tech ◆ Early-stage Businesses
what is it that you say you do here?The questions rarely stay in one lane. Neither does the work.
Embedded Strategy Partner
Your priorities keep moving, and nobody senior has the time to hold the strategy steady while they do.
What you get: Senior brand, social, and creative strategy inside your team, embedded or fractional, for as many hours a week as the work needs: in the briefs, the reviews, and the meetings where decisions get made.
What changes: Decisions get made against one strategy, and the work gets pressure-tested before it ships, without adding another full-time layer.
BEST FOR // EVOLVING PRIORITIES AND SUSTAINED CHANGE
Focused Strategy Engagements
There’s one question your team keeps reopening, like how to measure the work, how to position the brand, or how to rebuild the content system.
What you get: One defined problem, answered all the way through: the evidence, the recommendation, and what to do with it, scoped at kickoff.
What changes: The team stops reopening the question and starts working from an answer it can defend.
BEST FOR // A SPECIFIC QUESTION THAT DESERVES AN INFORMED, DECISIVE ANSWER
Research & Discovery
The brief rests on assumptions about the audience that nobody has checked.
What you get: Standalone research into your audience, category, culture, and behavior, e.g. social listening, cultural audits, or audience studies. Then a clear read on which assumptions in the brief hold up.
What changes: The team solves the right problem, with evidence it can put in front of the people who approve the work.
BEST FOR // MAKING SURE THE TEAM IS SOLVING THE RIGHT PROBLEM
Custom AI Strategy Tools
Your team has data and dashboards everywhere, and none of them tell anyone what to do next.
What you get: A tool built around your strategy and the jobs your team repeats, e.g. one page that pulls in everything your team would otherwise be checking all day, sorts it, and says what needs a decision and why, or a check that tests new work against the positioning. On its own, or added to any engagement.
What changes: The strategy runs in something the team opens every day, and it keeps working after I’ve handed it over.
BEST FOR // WHEN THE STRATEGY HAS TO KEEP WORKING AFTER THE ENGAGEMENT ENDS
Strategy-to-Activation Projects
You want one person to take it from strategy all the way to the work in market, or you already have the strategy and need it running.
What you get: Discovery, strategy, playbook, hands-on implementation, and full team hand-off, built as one connected engagement.
What changes: The team can run the work and repeat it, without a deck handed off at the midpoint.
BEST FOR // TURNING A STRATEGIC ANSWER INTO SOMETHING THE TEAM CAN USE AND REPLICATE
Workshops & Trainings
Your team needs to learn something, decide something, or build something together, with the people who’ll do the work in the room.
What you get: A custom training on a skill your team needs, e.g. social strategy for a regulated category or using AI in the strategy process. Or a working session built to produce a decision, a direction, or a shared operating language (not simply a room full of sticky notes).
What changes: The team leaves having practiced the skill on its own work, or with the decision made and written down where everyone can find it.
BEST FOR // A SKILL TO BUILD OR A DECISION TO MAKE
Team & Organizational Design
Work keeps falling between teams, and it’s unclear who owns the brief, the content, or the community.
What you get: Structure, roles, workflows, and operating rhythms designed around how the work actually gets done, with the order to hire or restructure in.
What changes: People know what they own, and the team’s strongest hours go to the work that can return on them.
BEST FOR // WHEN THE WORK HAS CHANGED BUT THE TEAM STRUCTURE HAS NOT
Who leads it, who else shows up, what I need from you, and what you’re left with.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING“Hands down the strongest strategy partner with whom I’ve worked. Possesses the kind of strategic thinking, insight, and methodology that creates both elegant solutions and surpasses goals.”
ADRIANA NOVA · SVP, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, LIPPE TAYLOR (NOW /PROMPT)NOW MARKETING AND CREATIVE CONSULTANT, ADRIANA NOVA CONSULTING
“Truly tapped into the culture. She knows what makes communities and audiences tick, and how to not just reach them, but to motivate them to action.”
BRAD BURKE · EVP, INTEGRATED STRATEGY, WEBER SHANDWICKNOW CHIEF MEDIA OFFICER, MSL US
“Elisabeth’s unending curiosity about why people do what they do and how they interact with each other results in thinking that extends beyond social — she is truly an integrated marketer.”
JENIFER CAMELI · GROUP ACCOUNT DIRECTOR, LBi US (NOW DIGITAS)NOW EXECUTIVE GROUP STRATEGY DIRECTOR, OGILVY
“Elisabeth ensures audiences are understood truly and deeply — because that’s what really makes things matter to people.”
ABE FLEISCHER · STRATEGY DIRECTOR, WEBER SHANDWICKNOW VP, STRATEGY, /PROMPT
“A very strong presenter and storyteller who commands a room.”
LORI RUBINSON · CHIEF CLIENT OFFICER, LIPPE TAYLOR (NOW /PROMPT)NOW MANAGING PARTNER, /PROMPT
“Brings new ways of thinking and pursues excellence both for herself and for the business. She is curious, detail-oriented and drives for results.”
STEPHANIE KRAMER · HEAD OF GLOBAL MARKETING, KIEHL’S SINCE 1851NOW CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER, L’ORÉAL NORTH AMERICA
THE WRITING
Thinking out loud, in public.
Unexpected Insights is where the questions keep moving after the brief ends: AI, culture, cognition, and the systems beneath what looks obvious.
The ADHD Brain on AI
01Truth in Tension: Why Complexity Matters in an Age of Absolutism
02Self-Sabotaging Innovation: The Art of Doing Dumb Shit
03Co-authored with Matt Klein for ZINE, his cultural intelligence Substack with 1M+ readers in 150+ countries. Published in 2024; still the #1 most-read essay on ZINE.