Over time, I’ve discovered that my best fit is when I’m leading marketing teams, especially when brand growth is identified as a priority. I’m good at bringing clarity, cutting out bloat, and building a culture of creativity and effectiveness.

I enjoy helping marketing teams make sense of their brand, their planning and their communications, so they can move quickly.

Ireland’s Marketer of the Year

Client: National Lottery
Theme: Brand Effectiveness at Scale
Result: €2.68 profit for every €1 invested

I rebuilt the marketing team around effectiveness. Our ambition was to revive The National Lottery as the famous brand it once was. I demonstrated how an investment in creative, Distinctive Brand Assets and higher-attention media led to real commercial results. We doubled down on what worked, cutting what didn’t, and reshaping the team’s habits around impact.

  • Highest revenue in the company’s history

  • 50% lift in brand metrics

  • Named Ireland’s Marketer of the Year

Article in Marketing Magazine

Turning mental availability into 27:1 ROI

Client: National Lottery (Ireland)

Theme: Mental Availability · Category Entry Points · Insight-Led Creative

Result: ROI 21:1. Sold out Millionaire Raffle tickets for the first time in years. Sustained sellouts in following years Multiple effectiveness awards. CEP now embedded in long-term comms strategy

What shifted:
Lottery products were already widely bought. But when we moved to using Mental Availability we uncovered a powerful Category Entry Point (CEP): “Want a nice gift to put into a card?” We built our entire Millionaire Raffle campaign around it. Every frame of the creative, every media placement, every message tied directly to that cue. Sales took off.

Why it mattered
The work proved how a sharp CEP, executed tightly, can unlock growth.

Article here.

Built a fame strategy

Client: Telefonica (O2 Ireland)

Theme: Fame Strategy · Challenger Brand Creation · Behavioural Design

Result: 12% youth market share within one year. We created outrage and so many complaints that our ads got banned. Created a limited-age product no one else would dare launch.

What shifted:
In 2012, we built a youth mobile brand that didn’t try to please everyone. We built tension into the product itself: only 18–22 year-olds could join. Too young? Locked out. Too old? Kicked out. It created curiosity, urgency, and debate.

The work borrowed from challenger brand playbooks - scarcity, earned media, tribal language, strong semiotics. The campaign didn’t ask to be liked. It demanded to be noticed.

Why it mattered
We didn’t just design comms - we designed behaviour. We used exclusion as a brand asset. We made the brand feel underground, even though it was backed by a telco. Most brands chase love. 48 chased fame - and it worked.

Brand effectiveness at scale

Client: Indeed

Theme: Brand Effectiveness · Evidence-Led Transformation

Result: Improved brand equity across core markets. Growth in customer numbers and revenue. Oversaw $400M budget, led 80-person global brand team. Lab and in-house agency helped embed experimentation at scale

What shifted:
As Head of Global Brand, I moved the team away from instinct-led marketing to a more empirical approach. That meant tighter integration across strategy, research, media and creative - and clearer decisions about what we backed and why.

We also built an in-house agency and launched a marketing lab to support faster testing — but the main shift was how we made decisions. This mindset helped drive brand and business growth across eight priority markets.

Why it mattered
The shift helped the team focus on the right things. We had a better view of what was working, and could adjust based on evidence - not opinion.

Brand-led growth

Client: Telefonica (O2 Ireland)

Theme: Brand-Led Growth · Strategic Progression · Commercial Impact

Result: 35% postpaid market share. Became market leader in the most commercially valuable customer segment. Achieved during Paul’s tenure as Head of Brand, following 8 years of brand development

What shifted:
This wasn’t a quick campaign win. It was the result of consistent brand building over time. For nearly 8 years, Paul helped shape O2’s customer-facing brand, from campaign strategy to distinctive assets to everyday media execution.

That discipline paid off - O2 became the market leader in postpaid with over 35% share, a segment known for its higher revenue per customer and long-term value.

Why it mattered
Brand wasn’t just communication - it was competitive advantage. Growth came from consistency, distinctiveness, and balancing short and long-term goals.

What others say about my work

  • Jonnie Cahill, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, International Foods at PepsiCo.

    “Paul is a strategic thinker, with world class creative capabilities. So he knows not just what to do, but how to do it. His unique talent is his ability to galvanise an organization”

  • Peter Field, the “Godfather of Effectiveness”

    “I’ve worked with Paul on a number of very successful projects over more than 5 years. His command of marketing science as well as his instincts for great thinking and ideas are, in my opinion, superb.”

  • Damian Devaney, ex-CMO at O2 Ireland

    “When in O2, Paul had the highest scores on people management across the entire organisation. He set the standard for excellent management of his team’s performance and development”

  • Paul D’Arcy, CMO, Indeed, Miro, Moloco

    “Paul Dervan reported to me as Head of Brand when I was at Indeed. I have learned more from him than anyone else in my career.”