April 2025 – In a dynamic conversation with Roastbrief, YanYan Zhang and Kim Mickenberg, partners at VSA, shared their unique perspectives on creativity, leadership, and the ever-evolving world of design and advertising. With rich backgrounds across a diverse blend of industries, both leaders have carved out visionary roles—Zhang in brand design and Mickenberg in campaign design.
As new partners at VSA Partners, how do you envision shaping the agency’s future and contributing to its continued growth and success?
Kim Mickenberg:
As the head of our campaign practice, my job is to help our teams develop breakthrough, brand-building campaigns that set our clients up for long-term success. To do that, we have to be both strategically rigorous and incredibly courageous. Strategically rigorous in the way we think, the way we work and the way we tap into the core audience’s needs. And incredibly courageous in putting forth ideas that break with convention and bring a unique and powerful point of view. My goal is for every team, on every project, to be both in equal measure—and to have fun working with each other!
YanYan Zhang:
Intelligent, intentional and impactful design is a core part of VSA’s DNA. The commitment to the craft and the quality of design produced drew me to the agency nearly two decades ago. As the demands of the marketplace have shifted and new technology arises, that dedication has never wavered. Whether we’re looking at the strategic big picture or scrutinizing the space between letters, an ardent level of care is always applied. And at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be possible without our people—VSA hires really great humans. I believe our continued growth and success lies in fostering a culture where we never lose sight of our core design tenets while celebrating the diversity of talent and expertise VSAers bring to the table.
With the agency now having a women-led leadership team, how do you believe this dynamic influences the creative process and decision-making at VSA?
YanYan Zhang:
I am honored to be in such great company. My fellow partners are all exceptional at what they do. Regardless of our demographics, we are driven by shared values and beliefs that allow us to consistently do the best work we can throughout the creative process.
The problems we solve are human centered. Empathy and openness go hand-in-hand to help us make better and more relevant decisions in our work. Having a typically underrepresented group in leadership positions can help cultivate broader perspectives. It’s imperative we are able to bring diverse thinking throughout our creative process, and the best solutions come from exploring across an extensive range of expertise and life experiences.
Kim Mickenberg:
I’m proud to be part of a leadership team that values inclusivity and takes a modern approach to everything from how we develop talent to how we scope our projects. I’m also proud to be part of an organization that takes its values so seriously. At VSA, we ask our teams to chase the big stuff, sweat the small stuff, fight for it (i.e., push for what we believe in), play like a champion of others and have fun. Those core behaviors come through at every level of the organization, and they serve as a roadmap for our decision-making, too.
Kim, your approach champions “bold simplicity.” Can you share an example of a campaign or project where this philosophy made a significant impact?
Kim Mickenberg:
Our campaign “Until Justice Just Is” for the YWCA was a great example of bold simplicity. It was bold because of what it was saying about the YWCA’s enduring commitment to social, economic and racial justice, but it was also very simple to understand—and very rooted in a cultural moment. People got it immediately, saw its relevance and connected with its message. That’s why it performed so well and remained a core campaign platform for the YWCA for years.
More recently, our “Not Just the Facts” campaign for FactSet also championed bold simplicity. The premise was rooted in a really sharp audience insight: Investors want the best information they can get, and as much of it as possible. But getting “just the facts”—without any curation—does more harm than good. To prove that point, our creative showed people in office settings getting inundated with absurd, useless facts. It was simple, it made a clear and precise point about the industry and it was easy to understand—even if you don’t work in finance.
And that’s part of the point. Bold simplicity works because 1) even your most technical buyer is a person, too, and people buy based on feelings, not facts; 2) the marketing landscape itself is fragmented, and to make an impact, we need to capture attention right away; and 3) to be maximally effective, your campaign needs to resonate with a wide range of disparate audiences.
For example, if you’re a person deciding on a database solution, you’re likely an expert on database solutions. But other stakeholders on your team may not be and you’re still going to need buy-in from them. If they see a provider’s brand campaign and immediately understand what that provider’s value is, that makes your job easier when convincing them to make the investment.
Additionally, campaigns show who you are to prospective talent—and talent is what drives most businesses and what keeps great companies at the top of their game. When your message is clear, strong and resonant, it shows prospective employees that you know who you are and what you stand for. And when you know who you are and what you stand for, you draw in people who are more aligned with your mission, ethos and goals.
YanYan, you’ve worked across diverse industries, from finance to local nonprofits. How do you adapt your strategic approach to meet the unique needs of such varied clients?
YanYan Zhang:
I am most happy when I am learning new things. It’s one of the reasons I love what I do—I never get bored. In order to do what we do, and do it well, it is essential to understand our clients, their business, industry, customer needs, employee needs and everything in between. When you operate with this mentality and approach, you can work with any kind of client successfully. It always starts with getting smart, doing the research and understanding the problem(s) we are trying to solve. We never go in with a one-size-fits-all solution. Sure, there are best practices and processes in place to ensure we use our time (and money) wisely, but our goal is to get to know our clients inside and out. Design is a business asset regardless of what business you are in, and our job is to deliver value to the business, not just to create aesthetically pleasing visuals.
Both of you have led projects for major brands like IBM, Google and PepsiCo. What do you believe are the key factors that make a brand partnership truly successful?
Kim Mickenberg:
Empathy, integrity and clear passion for the work. Plus a constant willingness to go beyond the brief, bring our clients fresh thinking and do whatever it takes to ensure their success.
By showing up that way consistently, we earn our clients’ trust and build really strong relationships with them and their teams. That’s why we have so many long-term clients, spanning years and even decades.
YanYan Zhang:
Not having an ego is critical to building and sustaining successful partnerships. It allows us to focus on the shared goal of doing really great work together and turning vision into reality. These relationships are not transactional for us—we are truly invested in the success of our clients.
We are genuinely collaborative in how we work, both internally across disciplines and externally with our clients and their network of creative partners. No matter the discipline, VSAers are willing to roll up their sleeves and continually go above and beyond.
In our longest-standing relationships, although we may know the brand like the back of our hands, we also never get complacent. A true partnership also continuously challenges us to identify opportunities to evolve and grow.
As leaders, how do you inspire and cultivate creative talent within VSA, especially in a fast-paced and evolving industry like marketing and advertising?
YanYan Zhang:
I previously mentioned the importance of caring. For me this is a fundamental driving force in creativity, as it gives us intrinsic motivation. It’s a catalyst for us to never be afraid to ask questions, try new things or make ourselves (and sometimes the clients) uncomfortable.
A piece of advice I’ve often given younger creatives is, “Never stop caring. But don’t take things personally.” When you care, the output of everything you do shows it. And in stark contrast, it is blatantly obvious when someone doesn’t care, because the work falls flat and lacks soul. But we are still in a service industry, so you can’t take feedback personally, whether it comes externally or internally.
Kim Mickenberg
Some of the best creative advice I’ve ever gotten is that if I’m making myself laugh, I’m probably onto something. So I encourage my teams to have fun, be fearless, make things that are delightful and just enjoy the process.
With the increasing integration of AI in the creative industry, how do you balance leveraging technology while maintaining the authenticity and human touch in your work?
Kim Mickenberg:
I think AI is a tool like every other tool. It’s great for some things, and not so great for others. As a writer by trade, I never have AI draft anything for me, and I never will. But I do use it for quick desk research and to experiment with visuals for inspiration. I’ve always loved learning new things, so I find it fun to play with. Plus, I think the technology behind it is interesting, especially as it continues to evolve.
That said, while I find it impressive technically, it’s ultimately just a tool. A tool doesn’t have feelings or a point of view. It doesn’t bring life experience and insight into its decision-making, which is why while it can replace parts of the creative process, it can’t replace the need for creative people. True creativity—in how you think, how you talk, and how you go to market—is rare, special and uniquely persuasive. And when you can harness it to work for your business, it’s a game-changer.
YanYan Zhang
AI technology can automate and expedite certain things, like image retouching and proof-of-concept alignment. What used to manually take longer now takes seconds with a single click of a button. But at the end of the day, it still requires a person to review and assess if the output is on brief or if it meets our quality standards. This efficiency allows us to focus and prioritize our time on what can’t be replicated through AI: humanity. The creativity and critical thinking needed to understand our audiences, translate needs/feelings, and express them in relevant and differentiated ways is essential to doing great work.
What excites you most about your new roles as partners, and what do you hope to accomplish as part of VSA’s leadership team in the coming years?
YanYan Zhang
At a personal level, this new role is particularly meaningful to me because VSA is where my career began. This promotion marks a new chapter, and I’m excited because I know it will bring new challenges for growth but also opportunities to help shape the next generation of VSA and VSAers.
To be an effective leader, I hope to lead by example and from within, not above. An important part of my job is to set our teams up for success. That means helping people find their voice and empowering them to use it, and advocating for one another.
I want to help foster an environment where people feel valued, supported and can grow. A place where people are proud and excited by the work—where they love doing what they do as well as who they work with.
Kim Mickenberg
Like YanYan, I want to foster an inclusive environment where people are excited to come to work and tackle our clients’ challenges. I want VSA to be known for delivering really smart, fun and effective creative to our clients, and for being an incredible place to learn and grow your career.
