SHOW
PONY
A Brand & Communications Consultancy
ABOUT ME
With +20 years of experience in leading brand and communications for beloved consumer brands, political leaders and major philanthropies, Abby has a track record of building unique PR campaigns and award-winning brand creative. Abby understands complex enterprise and reputational challenges, and loves to help clients develop strategies that not only tap into their unique stories, but harness them to meet their objectives.
From pop-culture fueled PR and brand work, to financial communications, regulatory battles, product and tech press, organized labor campaigns , corporate social responsibility campaigns, travel and tourism campaigns, crisis communications, global expansions and more, Abby brings a wealth of experience across sectors. Abby is available for limited consulting projects and is at her best helping thoughtful, risk-taking clients develop breakthrough work and in managing complex narrative shifts.
Abby Lunardini
SERVICES
Brand strategy and narrative development
Communications strategy and messaging
Creative storytelling and campaign creation
Social media strategy and campaigns
Event ideation, strategy and development
Crisis Communication and repositioning
Policy and advocacy campaign strategy and messaging
WORK
Abby led all marketing, social & PR strategy for +25 Virgin city launches, including this Toronto Launch, with a live DJ set with Drake. With relatively small ad budgets in early days, Virgin grew with viral PR, unique artist collabs and cheeky social campaigns.
Abby has led government relations, public policy and corporate social responsibility strategy, integrating it as a key part of brand work, as shown here with Virgin’s launch of its new SFO terminal with a tandem Virgin spaceship flight to benefit local STEM programs that ran on front page of WIRED, TechCrunch & the San Francisco Chronicle (here with Sir Richard Branson, Governor Newsom).
With limited budgets, Abby created unique partnerships that tapped into the reach and larger budgets Virgin did not have, including this partnership with Netflix for high-speed streaming inflight, premiering with the House of Cards cast on SFO-DCA flight and yielding coverage in Conde Nast Traveler, Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, ABC News and more.
Abby led all PR and social from the launch of the airline, which became a darling of the tech press with it’s product, early adopter social channels and unique brand. The airline was named #8 on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list and named “Social Brand of the Year” by TechCrunch.
Abby led a unique campaign with Google Maps that showing the consistency of the airline’s product. Integrated into the Virgin website, the Fast Company and Ad-Age awarded campaign was a low-cost way for Virgin to tell it’s story and punch above its weight class.
Within a tough media climate, built a new comms & brand team and repositioned philanthropy of Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and his partner Dr. Priscilla Chan, with unique campaigns and media profiles in CNN, Quartz, PBS Newshour, The Atlantic, Good Morning America, Fast Co, a Michael Lewis book and the founders first-ever joint broadcast interview w/ Gayle King.
Abby created first brand and integrated marketing campaign for Postmates, recognized as an Ad Age Editor’s Pick and by AdWeek Editors and still in-use by Uber today. Abby created viral PR campaigns with Post Malone, Chrissie Teigen, the ACLU and more.
Abby led brand marketing and PR for the Virgin America safety video, which racked up +12m views, an Ellen show appearance & kudos from The New Yorker to Techcrunch, along with CLIO, Cannes Lion and Webby Awards.
As an owner and CMO, helped fuel intense growth for personality assessment company, Truity, through product development, content marketing and unique data-driven PR campaigns with coverage in Bloomberg, CNBC and more. Truity was named to INC Magazine’s Top 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies List.
A call from a local shelter turned into one of Virgin’s top 10 sales days annually & +$50 million in free press with coverage, from Today Show, to Good Morning America, the New York Post, the NY Times, Los Angeles Times, ABC Nightly News and more.
Abby led fictional ‘BLAH Airlines’ campaign, a 5 hour and 45 minute film spoof of a SFO-EWR competitor who was blocking Virgin from gates in New York. Blah Airlines premiered at film festivals nationwide and widespread coverage on anti-competitive business practices ensued on CNBC, Fox & Friends, NY Times, Mashable and more, ultimately pressuring local elected officials and airport to act and allow Virgin in.
Abby helped take Virgin public leading all financial and public markets communications for the company. Virgin was one of the most successful IPOs of the year and was ultimately acquired by Alaska in 2017, yielding a massive return to it’s investors.
Bio
Abby is currently an owner and the Chief Marketing Officer of Truity, a leading provider of research-backed personality tests for individuals and businesses. Truity has been covered by CNBC, Entrepreneur, The Today Show, Bloomberg and was named by INC Magazine as one of the top 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies.
Abby served from 2018-2021 as the Chief Communications and Brand Officer for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative – the $70 billion philanthropic organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan. Prior to that, Abby served as SVP for Brand and Communications at Postmates, building the company's first brand identity and national brand campaign, positioning it for acquisition. From 2007-2017, Abby served as Vice President for Brand Marketing and Communications at Virgin America – helping to grow the airline from a start-up to a successful public company and beloved consumer brand. Prior to Virgin, Abby held senior communications roles in academia and politics, including serving as Special Assistant for Executive Communications for former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and leading advocacy communications for the 10-campus University of California system. She started her career as a staffer for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Abby holds an undergraduate degree from UC Davis and a MsC degree from the London School of Economics. A lifelong music fan and arts education advocate, Abby is an advisor to architect Frank Gehry’s arts education nonprofit (TurnAround Arts, a program of the Kennedy Center program) and a volunteer of the Silverlake Conservatory of Music.
Awards
Webby Best 360 Video – Disease Detectives, CZI, 2020.
PR daily “best press event/media tour” – Free Love Field campaign, 2015.
PRSA Pegasus ward for consumer media relations and community relations, Free Love Field campaign, 2014.
PR week’s “top 40 PR professionals under 40,” 2012.
Cannes Bronze Lion – Best activation, for “blah airlines” campaign – Virgin America, 2016.
Bronze Clio for music film – #vxsafetydance safety video, 2014.
Shorty award – best use of video in a social media campaign – safety dance video, 2014.
Webby award – honoree for branded entertainment category, 2014.
Ted Talks 2014 “ads worth spreading” – Virgin safety video.