About Young & Laramore
Young & Laramore is an award-winning advertising agency for national consumer brands, whose services include strategic marketing and proprietary research, multi-platform media planning and buying through our media division, EchoPoint Media—and creative in every imaginable platform. The agency has been on Outside magazine’s “Best Places to Work” list five years straight, and made multiple appearances on Ad Age’s annual “Forty Best Places to Work” list.




Why “Unreasonable?”
Today many marketing leaders and CEOs continue to cling to the misguided notion that their customers are mostly rational beings—and that their buying decisions are based more on reason than emotion. More logic and less gut. More need and less want.
This misunderstanding is understandable because we humans are all somewhat fooled by our own sense of rationality. But, an abundance of research over the past thirty years has revealed that we all actually behave “unreasonably,” often basing decisions on factors we’re not even aware of. This event is a window into this important work, and will hopefully convince you to think very differently about how to communicate with and study consumers and their behavior.
Chief Strategy Officer
Young & Laramore
Chief Strategy Officer, Young & Laramore
Tom Denari is the President & Chief Strategy Officer of Young & Laramore, an independent, creatively-driven advertising agency based in Indianapolis. Tom has spent his career studying what makes people buy, exploring non-rational motivations to uncover why consumers do what they do. And, as a hands-on strategist, he continues to engage with consumers on a regular basis, leading Y&L’s consumer immersion and brand strategy processes.
Across his thirty-year career, Tom has led the brand strategy development for a wide variety of brands, including: Brizo: Delta Faucet's premium faucet brand, KraftMaid Cabinetry, Farm Bureau Insurance, Angie's List, Goodwill Retail Stores, Stanley Steemer and Steak n Shake restaurants, to name a few.
Continually questioning the conventional wisdom of traditional communications practices, Tom studies how non-rational influences affect consumers’ buying decisions. His writings on consumer behavior and brand strategy have been regularly featured in Advertising Age, AdWeek, Forbes and Inc.
Tom has an M.B.A in Marketing from the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University-Bloomington, and a B.A. in Economics from Wabash College.
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