Exit 80

Exit 80 is an independent communications and marketing consultancy founded in 2022 by Ashley Purdum, a brand strategist whose career spans spirits, advertising and entertainment. Rather than operating as a conventional agency with fixed staff and overhead, the consultancy is built on a curated network of independent experts who are assembled project by project. That model lets it field a bespoke team for each engagement and deliver full-service results without the layers of process, overhead and red tape that characterize traditional agency relationships. The stated emphasis is on brands that create community, and the core disciplines are brand storytelling and talent-led campaigns, blending creative work with business strategy toward measurable commercial outcomes. The service range covers strategy, creative development, production and amplification, and the founder is described by clients as a 'Swiss Army Knife' for moving between those functions on a single engagement. Work is frequently structured as fractional or founding senior marketing leadership rather than as arms-length agency support. Current engagements illustrate the pattern: the founder serves as Founding Chief Marketing Officer for Four Walls, the Irish American whiskey brand co-founded by Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton, where she has been involved since the brand's inception in building it into a label recognized by both trade and consumers; and as fractional Head of Brand Marketing for APW, the pocket-sized bourbon brand associated with guitarist Derek Trucks. The consultancy's category focus sits squarely in beverage alcohol — whiskey, bourbon, brandy, gin and broader spirits — with adjacent experience in beer, soft drinks and consumer brands drawn from the founder's prior roles. Before launching the firm she led marketing at Night After Night, a creative agency known for shaping nightlife culture, where she oversaw communications and new business for the agency itself while supporting cultural initiatives for brands including Jaegermeister, Pernod Ricard labels such as Jameson, The Glenlivet, Avion and Altos, The Bronx Brewery and Trojan. She also served as Brand Director for Barking Irons Spirits, a made-in-New-York line of craft apple brandies and gins, where she oversaw the field sales team and led operations along with both consumer and trade programming — experience that extends the offering beyond communications into route-to-market and on-premise activation. Earlier experience adds large-brand and music-culture credentials. At Cornerstone, the in-house agency of The FADER magazine, she oversaw the digital and field marketing team, working with Converse, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Diageo while managing promotions for hundreds of album releases and performances at The Metropolitan Opera and on Broadway. Highlights from that period include helping Converse launch the community recording studio Rubber Tracks, launching Mountain Dew's Green Label Sound record label, reinvigorating the two-hundred-year-old Bushmills Irish Whiskey brand with ambassadors including Bon Iver, Elijah Wood and Aaron Paul, and programming at The FADER Fort during SXSW. Her start came at +1, a Brooklyn-based record label and artist management company, running the VIP door at the McCarren Pool Parties and collaborating with Playboy on the multi-year Rock the Rabbit charity t-shirt program shot by Mick Rock — grassroots brand-building work that informs the firm's talent-and-culture approach. Practically, the firm suits emerging and growth-stage beverage and consumer brands that need senior marketing leadership, launch strategy, celebrity and talent partnerships, influencer and ambassador programs, trade and consumer programming, event and experiential activation, public relations and content production, but are not ready to carry a full in-house department or retain a large agency. Geographically the practice is based in Hudson, New York, with regular working presence in New York City, and its client work reaches national U.S. distribution and trade audiences.