Theteambehind215brands.
Lucas Vandenberg, Founding Principal
Fifty & Five started managing social media for brands in 2008, before Instagram existed, before “social media manager” was a job title, and before most agencies had figured out that Facebook wasn’t just a place for college kids.
Since then, the team has run campaigns for 215+ brands across 15 verticals. Microsoft. Kendall-Jackson. Enterprise Holdings. Blaze Pizza. Axe. Discovery Channel. Tupperware. NETGEAR. Names you’ve heard of, in industries you work in.
We’ve run the full agency playbook — the hires, the overhead, the layers of account management between the strategist and the client. We made a deliberate choice to build for what comes next: senior principals leading every engagement, backed by an in-house bench of senior specialists when the work calls for their depth, and augmented by AI as a strategic layer, not a junior-staff replacement. The model is built for the next decade, not the last one.
The result is something most agencies can’t offer: direct access to the team that’s actually done this 215 times before. Senior-led practices, AI-leveraged. Just the senior team that built the plan, executing the plan, and adjusting the plan in real time.
“I’m based in Orlando. I’m the President of the SoDo Main Street Board. I’ve got two kids (Penny and Koen, 11). And I still genuinely love this work after 18 years — which, in this industry, is the rarest credential of all.”
Senior-led.Specialist-backed.
Lucas leads every engagement. When the work calls for depth outside social strategy, Fifty & Five brings in a short list of vetted specialists, each a principal in their own right, each running their own practice. You get the right senior for the work, sourced per engagement.
The technical partner when the stack is the bottleneck.
MIT-educated engineer-founder running a boutique digital-transformation studio, custom web builds, headless stacks, and AI-assisted automation. Brought in when the site, the CMS, or the data plumbing needs senior hands.
The call when every conversion matters.
A performance marketing principal with deep experience across paid search, technical SEO, CRO, and customer acquisition for Fortune 500 and emerging DTC brands. Brought in when the goal is measurable revenue, not reach.
Premium production, senior accountability.
A long-standing creative partner for branding and media buying, paired with a video studio for event, short-form, and social-native content. Brought in when the work needs craft, not just more assets in the queue.
These aren’t employees. They aren’t subcontractors billing hourly through Fifty & Five. They are working principals we trust with our own client relationships, brought in only when the work genuinely calls for their depth.
Eighteenyears,compressed.
- 2008
Started managing social media for brands, pre-Instagram, pre-"social media manager" as a job title.
- 2009
Fifty & Five LLC formed.
- 2010
Axe / Unilever product launch, Twitter takeover + experiential activations.
- 2011
Mezzacorona retainer begins, a decade-long run as the brand’s social lead.
- 2012
Blaze Pizza national social program launches.
- 2013
Hong Kong Tourism Board, first travel-vertical engagement, opens the category.
- 2016
Enterprise Holdings, 6 brands, 2 markets, simultaneously.
- 2020
Kendall-Jackson partnership begins.
- 2023
Strategic shift: senior-led, AI-augmented model.
- 2026
Leaner. Faster. Sharper than ever.
Workwiththeteamthatbuiltit.
Senior-led practices, AI-leveraged. Just the senior team.
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