Independent Media, Creative & Growth Company
We build brands like owners.
Built from more than a decade of operating, scaling and exiting brands, now applied to companies at every stage.
We were operators before we were an agency.
Build. Scale. Exit. Then do it again for other people's companies, with the same money-at-risk instincts.
-
Built
Brands and intellectual property, from nothing, with our own capital.
-
Scaled
Customers, revenue and organizations, through every channel shift since.
-
Exited
Created enterprise value and saw the outcome through.
-
SAMA
Turned that operating experience into an agency other companies asked for.
-
Today
Media, creative, commerce and growth for brands at every stage.
Trusted to build, launch and grow brands.
Consumer, retail, wellness, food and beverage, apparel, automotive, entertainment and B2B, at national scale and at founder speed.
SAMA
Big media.
Nimble execution.
Integrated media, strategy, creative and intelligence for organizations operating at scale, without the holding-company drag.
Explore EnterpriseSAMA DTC
Growth infrastructure.
Built around the transaction.
Acquisition, conversion, retention and discovery systems for modern consumer brands, run to customer economics.
Explore CommerceThe Operator Advantage
Most agencies learned marketing by spending their clients’ money. We learned by spending our own.
We bought the inventory. Carried the margin. Made payroll. Deployed the capital, acquired the customers, built the IP and lived with the outcome.
We think like owners because we’ve been owners.
The work.
All work
Every growth lever. One operating logic.
All capabilities-
Strategy
The commercial question before the creative brief.
-
Media
Capital allocation across every environment attention lives in.
-
Creative
Ideas produced to travel and built to be measured.
-
Commerce
The entire system surrounding the transaction.
-
Retention
Email and lifecycle systems that compound value after the first purchase.
-
Paid Search
High-intent acquisition managed to margin, not surface-level return.
-
Paid Social
Creative-led acquisition across the platforms where demand is made.
-
Search + AI
Being found by people and cited by models.
-
Production
In-house studio output at the pace media requires.
-
Intelligence
Measurement that changes the next decision.
Everywhere attention lives.
- Meta
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Connected TV
- Streaming
- Programmatic
- Digital OOH
- Streaming Audio
- Search
- Retail Media
- Direct Publisher
National placements, direct publisher deals, streaming, programmatic and retail media planned as one portfolio, because a channel list is not a strategy.
We manage the entire system surrounding the transaction.
Explore Commerce-
01
Attention
Earn the first second.
-
02
Acquisition
Buy customers at a price that works.
-
03
Conversion
Remove every reason not to.
-
04
Retention
Make the second purchase inevitable.
-
↺
Advocacy
Turn buyers into distribution.
Discovery, SEO, ecommerce SEO and AI search, feeds the system at every stage, not only at the top.
A decade of compounding.
- 10+
- Years Operating
- $100M
- Client Revenue Influenced
- 300+
- Brands Served
- $50M+
- Media Managed
- 6x
- Brands Built Internally
- 4
- Successful Exits
Built by operators. Run by specialists.
About SAMA-
SAMA
Thomas Desernia
Founder
Built and bootstrapped consumer brands before building an agency. Bought the inventory, ran the margin, spent the media budget and carried the outcome.
-
SAMA
John Florey
Founder & CEO
Leads the company and the client agenda. Treats every media and creative decision as a capital decision with a stated expected return.
-
Commerce
Justin Velez
Head of Commerce
Operator background in direct to consumer. Manages growth to contribution margin, payback and repeat rate rather than platform reported returns.
-
SAMA
Mia Cocoran
Client Experience
Owns the working relationship end to end, keeping senior people on the work and every commitment on schedule.
Contact
What are you building?
Tell us the business problem. We will tell you whether we are the right people for it.