In August, 2002, Essex was promoted to executive editor of Details magazine. At Details, he oversaw the magazine’s branding of the metrosexual phenomenon. While looking for advertising executives to include in Details magazine's 2002 annual power list, he met David Droga who was then the worldwide creative director of agency Publicis Worldwide. In 2004, Essex left Details magazine and became the editor in chief of Absolute, a luxury magazine. During Essex's tenure at Absolute, Droga and Essex kept in touch and often shared their views on how their respective industries were flawed. After working for several years, both wanted to start an entrepreneurial venture so they began working on ideas. Essex left Absolute in 2005 and the next year the two founded Droga5, an advertising agency. Shortly after joining Droga5, Essex was named its CEO. Under his leadership, the agency created UNICEF Tap Project and The Great Schlep of 2008. In April 2013, Essex became the Vice Chairman of Droga5 after serving as CEO for five years. He stepped down from the position of Vice Chairman and left the company in July 2015. In January 2016, Essex joined Tribeca Enterprises as its CEO. In October 2017, Essex stepped down as CEO of Tribeca Enterprises. As of 2018 Essex sits on the board of the American Advertising Federation, Plus Pool, the iHeart Media Creative Advisory Counsel, and iPic Entertainment. Essex is also the chair of the Mayor of New York City's Creative Council.
Plan A
In 2018 Essex founded creative holding company Plan A along with CEO and cofounder MT Carney. Plan A, a federation of agencies, merged firms Van’s General Store, Untitled Worldwide, Twin Studio, and Beekman Social for a combined $70 million in revenues. In 2020, Chapter, Tether, The New New Thing and TwoFiveSix joined Plan A. Essex recruited CAA founder Michael Ovitz along with Ben Lerer, Alexis Ohanian and Michael Kassan as investors and advisors. Regarding Essex’s combined firm, Ovitz said: "I've always made my decisions based on two factors: intellectual analysis and my gut. When they meet that's a go for me." Plan A later added Badger & Winters and several other creative marketing firms. In late 2018 the company debuted what Adweek called "a bright, poppy brand campaign" for online shoe retailer, Zappos. In March 2019, Campaign Live reported that Plan A added Sabrina Yu, who worked for over a decade between branding agency Select World and as a director at Svedka Vodka, as its Managing Director.
Authorship
Essex is author of The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die and the Creative Resurrection to Come and the co-author of three books: A Very Public Offering: The Story of the Globe.com,Chasing Cool, with former Barney’s CEO Gene Pressman, and Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny, with musician Nile Rodgers.
Reception
Essex is a frequent public speaker on media, marketing and monetization strategies. He is an angel investor in many technology firms and serves as an advisor to the White HouseOffice of Digital Strategy and the Wharton SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management. Essex has served as a television commentator for ABC, CNN, Anderson Cooper, The View and Fox News and his writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Outside magazine. He has co-authored four books: A Very Public Offering: The Story of the Globe.com,Chasing Cool, with Gene Pressman, Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny, with Nile Rodgers and "The End of Advertising: Why It Had to Die, and the Creative Resurrection to Come"
Personal life
Essex lives with his wife and two children in Dumbo, Brooklyn in New York City.
