Confessions of a Creative Director

Shlomo Genchin is a kind, generous and supremely talented creative machine! You probably know him from his super popular newsletter and website thecreativemarketer.net where he shares recipes, tools and techniques for writing creative copy, content and ads that help creatives achieve better work more consistently and efficiently. But he also has a day job as Creative Director at Ground Up VC where...

On today’s podcast, we have chief creative officer of NVE Experience Agency, the talented Shelly Elkins - Adweek Experiential Executive of the Year! And Shelley is here with a big proclamation that brand experience, also known as experiential ,has finally earned a seat at the big kids table and that we’ve entered the era of marketing with experience at the center of mix. As someone who has worked...

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the very first episode of 2024! I'm thrilled to have one of the hottest creative minds in the industry, someone who is breaking all the rules of marketing and advertising, and leading the brand Liquid Death to places few brands ever reach. I'm talking about the creative genius, Andy Pearson, who gives us a peek behind the curtain of how he and his te...

Enjoy an in-depth with Mark DePace Chief Creative Officer and Zach Mortensen, the CEO of Ghost Robot. This innovative studio is a one-stop creative powerhouse for top tier clients like Netflix, Google, Peloton, Away, and Airbnb, just to name a few. Ghost Robot stands out as a channel agnostic creative hub, adept at solving complex marketing challenges with a diverse array of solutions from video g...

On today’s show, we take a bit of a departure with former copywriter Ben Purkert, author of The Men Can't Be Saved, a wonderful novel set in the world of a branding agency and centered around a narcissistic young copywriter whose world comes crashing down after he gets laid off. While the book is fiction, it’s filled with stories inspired by his time in the industry we can all relate to like E...

On today's show, creative director Roberto Lastra shares his inspirational origin story as a kid from Mexicali, Mexico, who immigrated to the US during his teens. Pushing through culture shock and language barriers, he went on to work for five of the most famous agencies in the world before founding his own agency, Lovers Not Haters. Along the way, he learned that "The Less You Try To Fit...

Lucas Ribeiro and Kazuo Kobo are a dynamic duo of Creative Directors from Brazil, currently residing in New York City, where they work at the legendary McCann NY. They are Cannes Lion-winning creatives who have also taught at the Miami Ad School Brazil and recently published a book in Portuguese, translated as "Principles – 128 Principles for Becoming an Ad Agency Creative." The book is...

Highdive Advertising has become a go-to shop for top brands looking to make a splash at the Super Bowl. It might have a little to do with the fact that Chade Broude, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Highdive, sold through his first Super Bowl script one year into his career and has been creating winning spots ever since. Today, he’s opening up his playbook to reveal 4 simple concepts to ke...

Donny Dykowsky is an accomplished musician, composer, songwriter and founder of The Ski Team –  a premiere production, custom music and sonic branding studio out of Jersey City, New Jersey. His work has garnered Lions, Pencils, Clios, Webbys, Sundance Premiers, and is on permanent display at the MOMA. Check out our amazing conversation where he shares some hot tips that Creative Directors can use...

Kevin Lynch is an accomplished Copywriter and Creative Director , whose with an incredible career that has taken him across the globe with stops in China and Sweden where he was most recently Creative Director at Oatly. Kevin has always made career decisions by asking: What stories will I be able to tell? and he’s here to share with us his 5 Principles for Finding Success in a non-linear career.

Aaron North was recently described as a marketing genius by the master marketing genius Ryan Reynolds for his work as CMO of Mint Mobile. And after our conversation, I would have to second Ryan's assessment. Aaron is here to give us a sneak peek at the multi-agency strategy and workflow that he's perfected to create Mint Mobile's amazing work. Learn more about Aron here: https://www.li...

Brett Essman is a Creative Director extraordinaire Brett Essman from ad agency Preston Spire in Minneapolis Minnesota. Brett’s here to talk about being proactive as a Creative Director and looking for the opportunity to create big ideas in every brief And when you boil all that down, what he’s really describing is this idea of not becoming complacent but pushing yourself to go above and beyond. It...

Today’s guest is Andres Fabian, a globe-trotting Dominicano creative director who has worked on three different continents for companies and agencies like Leo Burnett, Kelly Bluebook, Innocean and VMLY&R. On this episode Andres discusses his experience as a Latino creative in the world of advertising.  It’s an important conversation we all need to hear, and we both share personal stories about...

Fresh off her appearance at Cannes, Margaret shares her thoughts on the power of AI and how she's harnessing it to take GS&P to new heights in innovation.

On this historic 50th Episode of COACD we’re talking with the brilliant and super humble Greg Hahn Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Mischief @No Fixed Address which was recently ranked among the Top Three Best Agencies in the world by AdAge!  He’s pulling back the curtain to share some of the guiding principles and philosophies that make Mischief such a magical, mystical and near mythical...

Ned Brown is CCO of Bader Rutter in Milwaukee and an accomplished pianist and songwriter. Over the years he's leaned how to apply concepts and processes usually reserved for music composition to help him generate fresh thinking for advertising campaigns.

"You won't promote yourself so how can you expect someone else to do it?" - Words of wisdom by the very talented and effervescent Joe Bird. Jo is an accomplished creative director, creative coach, mentor, speaker, photographer, and all around inspiring personality on LinkedIn. She's here to share a lesson she's learned along her journey about the importance of creating your o...

Remote work….love it or hate it, it’s here to stay. That means leaders need to accept it, embrace it, adapt to it and keep on leading. On today’s show, we’re speaking to Patrick Holly, Executive Creative Director at Upwork who shares his 5 Keys to Effective Remote Leadership. And spoiler alert…it has zero to do with monitoring peoples computer activity and everything to do with just being a good h...

Kevin is a self-proclaimed Creative Renegade. He is Executive Creative Direction & Founder of Juniper Jones which serves in-house agencies with insight driven creative & smile-producing content that challenges the status quo. And on the show, he will share his thoughts on how strong leadership and collective ownership leads to the best creative output.

It's important to have heroes in our business. People we can look up to, learn from, and even mimic while we search for our own voice. Chief Creative Officer Clarence Bradley, a self-proclaimed advertising nerd, had plenty of heroes coming up, but not too many that looked like him. But that didn't stop him from seeking out mentors and guidance he needed and in some ways becoming his own he...

When we think of creative directors, we immediately think of people working in ad agencies. But there's a whole other world of CDs who are working on the client side, at design firms, marketing agencies, or at PR companies like my guest Nipa Eason. Nipa is a brilliant Creative Director from Tallahassee, Florida, who has been working exclusively in PR for the last several years, and she's h...

A fascinating conversation with a fascinating creative mind! Tom Christmann sees our world in a very different way. He's an evangelist for the use of found content and believes that we're already living in the Metaverse, where creativity is ripe for the picking everywhere you look. Prepare to have your mind blown several times during this wide ranging conversation.

When Vikki Ross Writes, people read. When Vikki Ross speaks, you should listen. Queen of the Copywriters and a sought-after thought-leader in the field of Brand and TOV development, Vikki has worked for some of the biggest brands in the world like Sky, ITV, Twitter, Spotify, Adidas, Sony Music, Nando's and Pandora. And now she's here to give us a glimpse of what it takes to create a power Tone Of...

Jordan Brady is the real f'ing deal! A former stand up comedian turned highly sought-after director, Jordan has directed over 1300 spots, 4 feature films, 3 documentaries, 1 Netflix Comedy Special and coined the phrase Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow, true story!  In this episode he shares tips, tricks and best practices for working with a commercial director as an agency creative director. Spoiler alert....

George Tannenbaum's mind is filled with weird connections, colorful characters and an encyclopedic knowledge of the agency business. This wide ranging conversation is like a roller-coaster ride through the lessons he's learned about creating great work during a storied career that continues today with his one-mad-man shop GeorgeCo.