The Brief Bros.

Our friends at  BetterBriefs , Pieter-Paul von Weiler and Matt Davies have delivered more scathing survey results. This time on the subject of evaluating creative ideas presented by agencies to clients. Why are ideas so difficult to judge? Why have rounds of creative presentation grown from an average of three to five before clients sign off? Henry Gomez  and I share one juicy survey result from t...

Kit Altin  is chief strategy officer at  The Gate London . And she made a splash last year at Austin's  SXSW  with queues round the block waiting for her workshop. She was so popular, she was invited back last month. And she's now a fixture at the annual festival that celebrates tech, film and music. Kit joins  Henry Gomez  and me to talk about her journey from journalist to copywriter to...

You're given only eight hours to write a creative brief. What now? According to our guest,  Dan Carlton , it's not a common event, but it's not rare either. Dan is the CEO and founding partner of  The Paragraph Project , a company that develops "human-centered strategies" for marketers and agencies alike. And he's created an online training for strategists in a pinch for...

Meet  Kevin Le , content creator and podcast producer. A chance encounter on a business flight led to a three-hour non-stop conversation. And in invitation to join me on  The Brief Bros . Kevin's enthusiasm for podcasting is infectious. And his deep experience opened my eyes. And since so many of  Henry Gomez 's and my colleagues are dabbling in podcasting, this was an ideal time to delve into the...

Henry Gomez  and I return to discuss an important "nuts 'n bolts" topic: why is there tension between strategtists and creatives? Alex Morris  joined us a few months ago to share results from his own informal survey on this topic. But Henry and I decided it merited further exploration. When the relationship works, the results are magic. When it doesn't, the work suffers. Henry an...

Henry Gomez  and I welcome  Fab Nolan  and  Adam Green  from  99Ravens.ai  this week. 99Ravens is a new company in Toronto. And it makes a big promise: to improve the quality of client briefs to their ad agency clients. How? By using its AI-trained tool. Fab and Adam explain how it works and why they deliver on their promise. And they provided us with a  demonstration video . It's a fascinatin...

Hubbard  School of Journalism and Mass Communications student  Alex Chrislu  joins us today. She graduates in May and as you'll soon discover, she explodes with enthusiasm and confidence. And it's not hard to picture her in a senior leadership role in a short time. Henry Gomez  and I revel in meeting young talent like Alex. For all the oldsters we talk to who lament our industry's future, the Alex...

Henry Gomez  and I return with a Nuts 'n Bolts episode. Today we share with you a  paper  written in 2010. It's authored by Merry Baskin, a member of the World Advertising Research Center (WARC). And she writes on writing the agency brief. As Henry points out, this is the topic that triggered a debate between the two of us. The debate that motivated us to launch  The Brief Bros. Baskin&#39...

Uri Baruchin  joins  Henry Gomez  and me for the final segment of  our   conversation  about frameworks. And today we tackle a brief construct designed to simplify and clarify. Yet too often practitioners flub it. Why? Uri tells us. But he's just getting warmed up. What is the biggest cost of AI? You've heard many pundits pontificate. But Uri's answer may surprise you. All this and more.

Our friend  Uri Baruchin  returns for a two-part conversation. When he joined  Henry Gomez  and me  three weeks ago , we simply ran out of time. It happens. Today, we asked him to expand on a thought: why have brand platforms failed us? It's a master class in strategy. Part 2 is next week.

Henry Gome z and I welcome back our friend  Reid Holmes . And together, we celebrate the publication of his book  Appreciated Branding . It's an enlightening and provocative examination of how to make mature brands, in Reid's words, "irreplaceable." His  prescriptions  for brands, according to reviewers, are timely and humane. We begin our chat with a little time travel. We revis...

We work hard as creatives, strategists and brand advocates. So when it comes to organizing our finances and paying taxes, how many of us are as buttoned-up with the numbers as we are with ideas? This week, we thought we'd pause for a moment and talk dollars and sense. And introduce you to a numbers person who knows creatives,  Adeola Mosanya,  Founder and CEO of  Creatives Accoun t. She is a c...

Thanks to our friend and a  former gues t,  Baiba Matisone ,  Henry Gomez  and I introduce you to Uri Baruchin. Uri is a consulting strategist in London with more than 20 years of agency and brand experience under his belt. And he has more than a few things to say about our industry as he looks back on his career. He is unflinching in his critiques. And grounded in an eruidition most of us should...

With special thanks to our friend  Marc Lewis , dean of the venerable  SCA in London , we present  Louie Scott  (AD) and  Giorgia La Vecchia  (CW). Marc recommended both these young people who are deep into SCA's portfolio development classes. Louie's path appears like a long and winding road. Giorgia thought she found a creative outlet in the art world. Find out how they arrived, instead, in Ad L...

Our friend  Vivek Kuchibhotla  returns to talk about the challenges brands face when they search for a new ad agency. He's a veteran of Leo Burnett, where he worked on Proctor & Gamble, first in Venezuela, then Hong Kong, finally in Chicago. He was then put to work on the global MacDonald's business. Vivek is also on the  faculty  of the Association of National Advertisers. He teaches a variet...

Henry Gomez  chats me up today about my latest training, a  90-minute webinar  on writing the Single-Minded Proposition. It's one week from today, Wednesay, January 15. Today, I give you highlights of the webinar's take-aways. The training consists of 60 minutes of insights into real SMPs on real briefs, plus 30 minutes of discussion and Q&A with me. Writing the SMP is a challenge no matter ho...

Henry Gomez  and I welcome back an old friend,  Bob Hoffman . He's here to talk about his new book,  The Three Word Brief . It's an incisive and n0-holds-barred examination of the ad business and marketing. When Bob speaks, people listen. And on his third visit with us, he has much to say. From the flaws in the agency world to fraud in digital adveriting to frustations with marketing and marketers...

Finally, and at long last,  George Tannenbaum  answers the question on everyone's mind: Is GeorgeCo LLC really a Delaware company? He talks about much more than that, of course.  Henry Gomez  and I delight in the return of our friend. He's our holiday present to all of you. Consider this our joint thank you for your support over the last year. And the previous three years as well. George joins us...

Our guest,  Alex Morris , is a freelance strategy consultant who authored a study Creatives on Strategy: Looking Outside Ourselves to Define What Strategy Offers. It is a survey of creatives' thoughts about strategy. And it's the topic of our discussion today. Alex is a strategist of high regard, as evidenced by the comments from his colleagues. “Alex Morris is every creative’s dream strategist,"...

Ed Tsue , Global CSO at Media Futures Group, a respected and admired strategist in our industry, tells us that the  Creative Brief is Dead . Today on The Brief Bros., he defends and expands on his position, first posited in his Medium newsletter a year ago. And thanks to last week's guest  Ed Cotton , who reposted Ed Tsue's musings on his blog, Provoke, we found it. And then decided to bring Ed Ts...

When he launched his Substack blog  Provoke  six months ago, strategist  Ed Cotton  had a clear goal. He decided to post excerpts from and links to his favorite LinkedIn articles. But he didn't stop there. When a topic struck his fancy, he looked beyond LinkedIn and created a curio box of goodies. Most are strategy related. But his interests reflect the curiosity of a good strategist. Attention, d...

It's a too-familiar story.  Derek Walker,  copywriter and agency founder, came to advertising via journalism. When he graduated, he couldn't find work in ad agencies. Instead, he cut his teeth in corporate America. Radio Shack, for one, where as in-house ACD, he worked on the  Howie & Teri  television spots. As he tells it, his grounding on the client side helped him immeasurably. And gave him...

Part 2 with  Christopher Owens , head of brand strategy at  TRG , formerly The Richards Group. Today, Christopher continues to share his passion for strategy. He talks at length about the dangers of short-term thinking on building brands. Then he addresses the turn away information-driven creative back to creativity and story-telling to make emotional connections. He also tells us about his leader...

Our guest this week is the man who put us in touch with the author of the famous Kiwi shoe polish creative brief.  Christopher Owens , head of brand strategy at  TRG , formerly The Richards Group, hired Sarah Walker-Hall. He reached out to us years ago and asked if we wanted to meet this strategist. And that led to a  two-part interview  on The Brief Bros. Today, Christopher joins us for a two-par...

The second part of our conversation with TBWA Worldwide's  Rob Schwartz . Today, guest-host  David Moore  and I talk with Rob about the heroes among strategists. The story behind the full-page ad for TBWA\Chiat\Day NY's move. What's the way forward for our industry? Is advertising creatively rewarding? And more. Reminder: For a 90-minute live webinar and customized corporate training in writing in...