I help companies build things
people actually care about.
Brand and marketing strategy for companies that want to earn attention, not buy it. Most of my work is about removing the feeling of being marketed to.
I came into strategy sideways, which turned out to be useful. I'm less interested in how to push attention and more interested in why someone would choose to give it.
I started in agencies working with Nike, Google, Samsung, and Verizon, then spent years deep in games. Games are where I learned that brand, product, and community can't be treated as separate problems. You have to acquire people, keep them for years, evolve constantly, and still feel consistent. Everything has to work together or nothing holds.
That perspective didn't stay in games. It's how I approach strategy everywhere.
Invincible VS — Skybound
Currently leading earned media strategy for Invincible VS, a fighting game based on the Invincible universe. The work focuses on how a game enters public conversation rather than how it advertises.
The game sits between a major entertainment IP and a competitive fighter, which means balancing two audiences: existing fans and players evaluating a new entry in the genre. My role is shaping narrative framing, planning moments that generate organic attention, and aligning messaging across publishing, creative, community, and partner teams.
One example: a live character reveal at EVO 2026, built around a fan-driven melt mechanic where social engagement and on-site activations controlled the pace of the reveal in real time. The broadcast generated nearly 20,000 organic hashtag activations across platforms, and the following day became the highest single-day pre-order performance outside the holiday window.
The goal is simple: when players hear about the game for the first time, it should feel like something they discovered, not something they were targeted by.
League of Legends, TFT, 2XKO & R&D — Riot Games
Built a shared brand foundation for League of Legends, working with publishing, product, and creative leadership to define long-term positioning and turn it into tools teams could use day-to-day: brand direction, tone and voice, ecosystem pillars, cross-discipline workshops.
The core challenge was alignment. Hundreds of people across multiple disciplines cared deeply about the game, but without shared language, good local decisions didn't add up to a coherent global direction. The work became a reference point across publishing and development, and I eventually applied the same framework across TFT, 2XKO, and R&D projects.
"Matt translated the team's instincts into a clear point of view we could confidently build against. That work shaped how we evaluated ideas and made decisions moving forward."
Kevin Scharff, Executive Producer, Riot Games
"Incredibly impressed by how quickly he was able to grasp complex ecosystems, problem spaces, and synthesize disparate data sets into insights that provide strategic clarity and direction."
David Wang, Publishing, Riot Games
World of Tanks — Holiday Ops
Led creative strategy for Holiday Ops, the biggest annual tentpole for World of Tanks, a franchise with over 350 million registered players across PC, console, and mobile.
The core question was how to re-engage a deeply invested player base without making them feel marketed to. The answer was to stop making advertising and start making content. The campaign centered on a cinematic featuring Vinnie Jones as the seasonal ambassador, not as a spokesperson, but as a character. The community engaged with the film on those terms, talking about the humor and the personality rather than the promotion.
It worked well enough that Wargaming brought Vinnie Jones back for a second consecutive year, expanding his role and recording 250 additional lines of custom voiceover. In live service games, a client renewing a creative bet is the metric that matters.
R/GA FutureVision
I research and write long-form reports and articles on how technology changes behavior before companies fully recognize it. The work spans FutureVision's own publications and pieces for Fast Company, studying new platforms, business models, and communities to find patterns worth acting on.
I also led the consulting side of R/GA's program, working with teams at Nike, Samsung, Epic Games, and Google who were using this research to guide real product and business decisions. When you spend enough time looking at how people actually behave, you start to see the same motivations repeating in different contexts. That perspective carries into everything I do.
"Matt was a fantastic partner during our time at RGA. He was always helping connect the gaps between strategy and creative; he also knows how to take the latest technological developments and turn them into exciting new opportunities for brands and marketeers."
Mark Lester, Founder, Squint
Companies usually bring me in when something important is unclear. I listen, map what's really happening, and help the team agree on a direction they can act on. Most groups already have the right instincts. They just don't share the same language yet.
I learn the product, the audience, and the context around them, then stay involved through execution so the strategy holds up outside a presentation. I'm comfortable presenting to executives, running workshops with cross-functional teams, or working directly with designers, writers, and developers.
I've worked on projects that lasted a few days and others that ran most of a year. I get useful answers quickly, even when the problem is new.
If you're working on something where brand, marketing, or audience strategy feels unclear, I'd be glad to talk.
mattsabourin@gmail.com