Round 5 of 8: January

***Sign up for your 2021-22 Young Glory Membership to Enter***  

Laurel Stark Akman, Tiara Puglisi & Mark Renken.
The sims, ea.

Laurel Stark Akman, Creative Director, The Sims, EA

Laurel is a Creative Director, change agent and creative force for good. Her work has been called "world changing" by Fast Company, “industry bettering” by Adweek and she’s been named a Brand Innovators 40 under 40 and a Pitch 100 Superperson for her culture-shaping campaigns and inclusive industry-wide activism.

She currently leads global creative marketing efforts for The Sims franchise, and sits on EA’s DEI Council and the Advisory Board for the schools of Advertising and New Media at the Academy of Art University. She’s also a senior member of the 3% Movement team, co-founder of The One Club for Creativity’s gender equality boosting Next Creative Leaders competition and Our Silent Partner, a crowd-sourced reflection on mental health and creativity.

Prior to joining EA, Laurel led diverse teams and global creative work at TikTok, Intel’s Agency Inside, Media.Monks and the Google Brand Studio. But her best work to date is her five year old daughter, Ayla Rose.

Tiara Puglisi, Director, Brand Marketing, The Sims, EA 

Tiara is Director of Brand Marketing for the Sims and Skate. Franchises at EA, where she is driving brand transformation efforts focused on reinvigoration for the next generation of players. She is responsible for driving the consumer marketing strategy, establishing campaign strategies and plans, ensuring creative and executional excellence and KPI achievement.

In her current role, Tiara has introduced a new integrated marketing model and approach aimed at elevating The Sims beyond a game and reclaiming its place in culture, all while improving communication with players and giving them unprecedented transparency. Tiara also spearheaded the creation of “You Make The Sims,” a new platform developed to celebrate the diverse voices and their historical contributions of The Sims’ LGBTQ+ and POC creator communities to the game and brand.

Prior to joining EA, Tiara built teams and led award-winning global work at agencies like R/GA, Anomaly, and Argonaut. Her Roo Highschool work for Planned Parenthood earned her a Fast Company World Changing Ideas nod in 2020. Outside of “the office” Tiara enjoys spending time with her family including 3 kids, dog, and cat. She’s also an avid runner and foodie – but she tries to keep those activities separate from one another.

Mark Renken, Director of Brand Strategy, The Sims, EA

Mark is an award-winning strategist and creative leader who is driven to solve human problems. His genuine curiosity and passion for discovery through experiences has stitched his unique career path through the agency landscape, creative entrepreneurship and the infinite potential of gaming.

Whether he’s thinking about the Super Bowl differently, building experiences that help teen athletes care about science, reviving a Reddit demolished brand, or fostering places, both virtual and physical, to truly find yourself, his goal is simple: help brands broker moments that draw people closer to themselves and to culture—bridging indelible connections in the process.

From leading brand and creative strategy across The Sims, Skate, Apex Legends, Madden, EA/EA Sports brand, and Need for Speed, to driving digital, brand and social strategy for Gatorade, Wendy’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, NAPA and Quiktrip at VMLY&R, Mark’s work highlights the inflection point of empathy and intelligence—shaping award-winning brand experiences that drive business impact, but most importantly, impactful human connections.

In addition to his current work at EA, Mark is also the co-founder of NVSBLE FREND, a brand dedicated to the weird little creative in all of us, who is just looking for a place to phone home.

BRIEF: The Sexy Brief 

Fact: Only twenty-five of the states in the US require sex ed to be scientifically accurate. 

Things you might be asking yourself: 

Why haven’t I heard about this? 

What does that mean? 

How bad is that? 

Well, it’s not good. 

In the US, only twenty-five states mandate that some form of sex ed be taught in public schools. In other states, like Alaska or Arizona, school districts can choose to teach sex ed if they wish, but it’s not required by law. In Alabama, if classes are given, they must stress abstinence. In fact, thirty seven states insist that abstinence be part of the curriculum. These methods have mostly been proven ineffective and if they include not teaching anything about contraception, they are not only ineffective, they’re withholding medically important information while leveraging shame and fear. The message implicitly (or not so implicitly) becomes “sex is a part of a terrible lifestyle” that will ruin futures. 

And while this broken system continues to ensure young Americans aren’t properly prepared for the realities of being sexual beings, lawmakers continue to push laws that further limit the right to have choices along the sexual journey. A few months ago, Texas banned most abortions after six weeks, before most even know they are pregnant, taking away a basic freedom and access to safe abortion facilities. 

Problem: When it comes to sex, we set up young Americans to fail. 

So, what can we do? It’s incredibly difficult to take on our inadequate sexual education system at the government level, but we can help young people with their sex ed knowledge and experience. 

Fact: Some of life’s greatest lessons are learned in the Sims first. 

From the importance of owning a fire extinguisher to just how hard parenting actually is, The Sims 4 offers young people the chance to learn key life lessons (including who you are and what’s important to you) without risking real world ramifications. 

The Assignment: Build ideas that leverage the Sims brand and platform to help teach the realities of sex to young people before it gets too real. 

Key questions to think through: 

Can we leverage Sims as a brand without requiring in-game updates? 

How do we get people to see past the stigma of sex education?

Responses to Brief 5 due January 31st, 2022 11:59pm (Los Angeles time)