Jarell Thompson is leading the charge where pixels meet real-world passion. A Brooklyn-born gamer, sneaker-obsessed storyteller, and anime connoisseur, he’s spent the past two years rewriting the rules of brand engagement from inside the joystick. Since April 2023, he’s been driving Havas Play’s evolution into a gaming-first powerhouse, pushing brands to stop treating games as side quests and start showing up where culture is created. Jarell’s leadership has produced genre-defying campaigns for clients like Marriott, Verizon, Swarovski, and AT&T—each one engineered to meet audiences across digital worlds and emerging platforms like Fortnite, Roblox, and cloud-based services. Whether he’s architecting a hotel’s debut inside a game or launching an accessory brand into a new virtual ecosystem, Jarell keeps the storytelling real, the activations fresh, and the strategy grounded.