464: Laurie “Nez” Donato, Nez & Pez

Next time you’re on your computer, look at the last five brand websites you visited. How many of them looked exactly like each other? Same stock photography, same font, same promise to “transform your business.” Marketing has a sameness problem, and most people in the industry have just accepted it. Laurie “Nez” Donato is not one of those people.  After earning a BFA in Visual Communications from Auburn, she spent two decades in advertising, where she worked on brands from Nucor and KeyBank to Bojangles’ and GE. Then 2020 hit. Instead of riding out the pandemic at her then-current role, she and her creative partner Ruben Lopez co-founded nez&pez, a branding agency specializing in the most un-creative-sounding industry on earth: cybersecurity. Laurie, welcome to The BrandBuilders Podcast.