San Francisco, September 3^rd, 2025

Burst Digital is a creative agency with offices in London, New York, and San Francisco, dedicated to building, launching, and growing show-stopping brands. Known for their bold approach and client-centric mindset, Burst delivers world-class design, development, and marketing solutions tailored to each client’s unique vision. Their portfolio includes high-impact collaborations with global names like Vivienne Westwood, Howden Group Holdings, Artisan, Kinetic Software, and BCI Brands—demonstrating their ability to drive results across industries through innovation and storytelling.

With roots in business, law, and crypto research, Max Carmichael-Jack brings a data-driven edge to the world of branding. As the Founder and CEO of Burst Digital, he blends sharp analysis with creative execution to help companies scale with precision. In this conversation, Max reflects on his global journey—from London to Bali to New York—and how his unique perspective is shaping the future of digital strategy.

Let’s begin with your background. You were born in London — tell us a bit about your upbringing and how that environment influenced your journey into branding, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

I had a lot of siblings when I was a child, so there was always a lot going on in my house. Honestly, I didn’t like learning until I was around 20, so school was a bit of a slog for me. I was always much more interested in understanding how things work, rather than sticking to the strict curriculum that’s taught in school. My teachers liked me despite this, with my religious studies teacher calling me a lovable rogue in appearance evening (I’m still holding onto that this day).

Honestly, my journey into the creative side of things has been more of a byproduct of my career progression. I studied business and law at university, and naturally have a very analytical mind. After finishing university I worked at a Crypto start-up, where I realised that a lot of the industry was scams and problematic projects. I wanted to do something about that, so I got a job as a researcher for Cryptonary, which is a major UK research company serving the retail market. I worked as a researcher for over a year, before becoming Head of Research, managing a team of 6 researchers, and deciding our content direction, amongst talking at international events, hosting podcasts, filming courses, and much more.

Having watched hundreds of projects that I wrote reports on rise and fall in value, with massive pump and dump scams rising to hundreds of millions, whilst great projects with incredible utility would fall into nothing, all as a result of their respective marketing, I gained the unique perspective into what causes businesses to succeed and fail. I saw how positioning and marketing had such a massive impact on how businesses grow, and I realised that there’s clearly a formula that can be replicated.

These days, you live and work across cities like San Francisco, New York, Bali, Dubai, and Barcelona. How has the cultural richness of traveling and working in such diverse places shaped your creative instincts and business perspective?

I can’t claim credit for our creative ability at Burst Digital, it’s the team really that brings this magic about. As mentioned, I’m much more of an analytical person. My design and creative instincts are a result of understanding what works and what doesn’t work on a massive scale, rather than creative inspiration.

It’s not what you expect to hear from our marketing company, but luckily I surrounded myself with incredibly creative people who are able to more than make up for that side of me, and I add an extremely unique factor into the mix with my research experience and analytical ability to spot and solve problems in marketing funnels and designs.

What inspired you to launch Burst Digital in 2018, and how did you envision it standing out in an already crowded digital space?

We were inspired by the idea of offering something that would really make a difference to businesses that are starting out like ours. We knew that we could help them succeed, and we would succeed at the same time.

Burst has grown quickly, with a strong presence in London, New York, and San Francisco. What do you think clients are looking for today that they weren’t five years ago?

Honestly, what clients are looking for has always remained the same. They’re looking for more clients, a better public perception, and faster growth.

The results they want haven’t changed, however the methods to get there have dramatically. With the rise of AI we are seeing an amazing ability to process data, create and bounce ideas off infinitely intelligent systems, integrate a range of tools that previously we would’ve thought was impossible, and overall excel more than before.

Funnily enough, it’s us who introduce this technology to clients generally. We have a well-formed process and systems in place to ensure that we effectively and safely utilize AI to the maximum capacity.

Your work spans branding, messaging, and growth. In your view, how do these pieces interact to shape long-term business success?

This ties back into my answer above, messaging, branding, your website, and marketing decide how you are perceived by the public. You could have the best product in the world and terrible messaging and marketing and no one will ever find out about you. Or the worst product in the world but an amazing website and marketing offer, and grow at breakneck speed.

Our mix of science and creativity creates offers that people can’t turn down, and our clients love us for it.

Let’s talk about AI. Where do you see the most meaningful impact of AI on branding and positioning today — and where are people getting it wrong?

It really comes down to the research side of things, that’s where AI makes the biggest difference. People are getting it wrong by trying to integrate it too heavily right now. A lot of businesses are building their own tools and spending massive amounts of money on it. Realistically, in 12 months there will be a massive range of tools from the major players, as well as all the AI startups. Corporate businesses building their own tools for reasons outside of privacy and security will find that they’re wasting money soon enough. They would be much better off vibe-coding and using automation tools to create things to the same effect. We’ve been able to build some incredible things with these tactics.

How do you integrate AI tools into your creative and strategic workflows at Burst without losing the human insight that drives authentic brand messaging?

All of our messaging is written by our expert messaging team. AI is used in our workflow to aid with research, storyboarding, creativity, and data analysis. Not to create the final product.

Burst describes itself as a “collective of creatives.” What’s your approach to building and leading a distributed global team in a high-velocity industry?

This is a funny question considering what I said earlier about me not being particularly creative. However, team management is something that I have a lot of ability in. It’s all about culture, regularly running teambuilding events and quizzes where we get to know each other, as well as having regular calls with the rest of the team. You really miss this part otherwise with virtual working.

Messaging and positioning are often seen as intangibles — how do you help brands clarify and communicate what they stand for in ways that resonate?

It’s all about understanding who they’re trying to communicate with, what they offer, who they offer it to, and why they stand out from their competitors. The base is as simple as that. Once you have that information, you can start to really dive into success stories of competitors or previous clients, get to know what made them succeed, apply this to the ideals and future plans for the business in question, and you have a good formula to get to work.

Can you share an example of a project where rethinking the messaging or brand positioning led to a measurable business breakthrough?

Definitely, our work with Kinetic Software saw a 2,200% increase in their leads after we worked on their messaging and website design.

What advice do you give to startups or fast-scaling brands struggling to align their identity with their growth goals?

For startup or fast-scaling brands, the most important thing is to know that you are deciding the future of the company when you create the messaging. Many parts of it can shift and change, but the core of the business needs to stay true.

You need to decide what your mission is, what you’re trying to achieve, and where you want to be in 5 to 10 years. Use that to create a base that you’ll be proud of.

You’ve worked across industries and time zones. Are there any sectors right now where you’re seeing especially bold or exciting branding work?

Funnily enough, some of the incumbent brands are showing some very impressive work at the moment. Puma has done a great job of rebranding themselves as the running leader, for example.

What role does experimentation play in how you approach digital strategy — especially in uncertain markets?

In every retainer for marketing, we include around 10% of the time for innovative activities. What this means is that we can spend at least a few hours a month, often much more, looking into new and exciting ways that we can market. This allows us to stay at the bleeding edge, offer client services they won’t get anywhere else, and ensures that we continue to outperform our competitors.

In short, experimentation — especially with the world as it remains now — is potentially the most important thing we do.

How do you define “success” for a brand today?

It’s everything. A brand refers to the entire package. When we create brands, we’re creating much more than a successful result, cultural relevance, or an emotional connection. We’re connecting all of that together and everything else, creating one big, beautiful package.

What trends or shifts in digital branding are you paying close attention to as we move further into the AI era?

Digital branding isn’t really a thing. However, branding as a whole is seeing a lot more innovation, as with every other area of marketing. The ability to turn out creative concepts before you get to work really designing is incredibly powerful. However, a lot of people aren’t using human intuition and creative ability for that first step. They’re turning out concepts but not thinking about the meaning behind them.

What tools or software are essential to your daily work and why?

So many, I wouldn’t be able to list them all. We have a set of internal tools that we’re building out at the moment using automations and vibe-coding, and these are proving extremely valuable.

When you’re not building brands or jumping time zones, what helps you reset or stay creatively inspired?

To really reset I need quite intense activities. I’m currently really into Muay Thai, MMA, and boxing. I’ve previously taken flying lessons and motorbike courses.

Having said that, I also do quite a lot of yoga, meditate daily, read for at least an hour a day, and I’m currently learning Spanish.

Finally, can you share a fun or surprising fact about yourself that most people wouldn’t expect?

I’m one of seven children, and have around 50 to 60 people in my direct family.

Thanks Max!

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