Mr. Bernstein

Laurence Bernstein

Managing Partner

Protean Strategies

During a highly successful 20 year advertising career, Laurence Bernstein launched and nurtured numerous global hospitality, foodservice and financial service brands, on behalf of Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising, Young and Rubicam and Chiat Day. Prior to becoming an ad-boy, Mr. Bernstein cut his teeth in sales and marketing with Westin Hotels.

In 1998, in response to the rapidly changing marketing environment, he founded the boutique strategy and research agency that he now runs, Protean Strategies. Conceived as an agnostic strategy development and outsourced planning partnership, Protean has developed into a world leader in research innovation and brand strategy development.

From its inception, the firm has led the way in experiential branding -- converting attributes, features and benefits into relevant and differentiating experiences that could form the underpinning of real brand-centric growth. This led to the seminal idea of “modern luxury”, first posited in a 1999 white paper published in the Cornell Quarterly, which now underpins the entire boutique category.

In the consumer research field, Protean developed the first psychoanalytic approach to market research, Inner Directives Archetype Studies, that has been used by more than 20 automotive brands to understand the underlying relationships between people and their vehicles. Inner directives has also been used by hotel companies and travel organizations to better understand and cater to their guests and visitors.

The Protean Guest Experience Audit system is an inexpensive methodology to help hotels understand what guests actually experience at the property level, using an interactive, real time methodology. In addition, Protean is recognized by Forrester Research as a leader in the exciting new field of Predictive Market based consumer research.

Protean Strategies has helped global hotel, automotive, CPG, financial services, and retail brands understand their customers and build lasting strategies based on aligning corporate vision with customer experience.

Mr. Bernstein attended the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He is in demand as a speaker on brand and marketing related topics and has authored numerous articles and white papers on advertising, marketing and branding.

Mr. Bernstein can be contacted at 416-967-3337 x101 or bernstein@proteanstrategies.com