Social At The Speed Of Culture
Founder and CEO of Coolr, the independent social-first agency built to win at the speed of culture. He argues social is no longer a channel a brand bolts on, it is where culture now happens.
"We care about every single post, comment, and reply, and tweet."
Adam Clyne founded Coolr in 2017 and has built it into an independent, social-first agency of more than 150 people across London and New York, with a Cannes Lions win for its Burger King work. He came to it through two decades in PR, content and digital: commercial and managing director roles at Kindred and at TVC Group, which he helped expand internationally before its sale to The Economist Group, then Head of Digital across Weber Shandwick's EMEA offices and a spell as COO of LADbible. His career has tracked the rise of social from a single channel into the place where culture now happens.
Coolr began with a bet that no one else was quite making. Adam had seen two worlds up close: the strategic discipline and compliance that large brands demand, and the speed, agility and instinct for culture he absorbed as COO of LADbible. Most agencies could do one or the other. He built Coolr to do both at once, big-agency thinking delivered at the pace of a social publisher. The name carries the idea, an evolution of the office water-cooler conversation, now relocated to the social feed.
The proof came early, with Burger King. A Twitter activation built around Kanye West became the most-liked tweet a brand had delivered at the time and won a Cannes Lion. It showed brands a permission they had not had before, to move at the speed of culture rather than the speed of the approval process. Burger King is still Coolr's client of record eight years on.
What Adam will not do is stray. Coolr stays in its lane, social content, publishing and influencer, and aims to be best in class there rather than competent everywhere. He is blunt that for most brands social should be the first line of the marketing plan, not an afterthought, and that a CMO who is not building from there has the order wrong.
"Social media was a competition and a brand can win on any day of the week."
"If a CMO isn't putting social media as the first thing on their marketing plan, then I would argue they're not doing it correctly."
Coolr's case is that social has stopped being a channel brands add at the end. In 2025 US social viewership overtook linear TV for the first time. A marketing plan that does not start there has the order wrong.
"We are designed and built for social. We don't try and go outside of our swim lane."
Coolr does social content, publishing and influencer, and aims to be best in class at those rather than competent everywhere. No TV commercials, no PR, no events. The discipline is the point.
"The thing that excites me is getting people ready and match fit for the today, not always about obsessing for the tomorrow."
While the industry chases the new, Adam's view is that most brands have not got their fundamentals right. One global brand aspiring to be best-in-class on social had not posted on a channel in twelve months. Fix today before chasing tomorrow.
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