Two advertising industry giants join us today to talk about their new book, The Howard Gossage Show . Both Steve Harrison and Dave Dye have talked to us before. But today they arrive together as co-authors of a book as big as its subject matter. And a necessary teaching tool for all of us in the ad game. Sitting in for the traveling Henry Gomez , our friend David Moore matches his enclyclopedic knowledge of the industry with Dave Dye's. And our conversation covers Howard Gossage, brand history, ...
May 29, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 169
You need chutzpah to land an internship in our industry. Spell it any way you like, you gotta get the decision-maker's attention. Which is why Henry Gomez and I are so delighted to introduce you to Kristina Olsen Pinjusic, a.k.a. "The Kristina," your new favorite intern. She displayed enviable intrepidity and gutsiness and used LinkedIn to announce her intentions. And it blew up her feed. Kristina is a graduate student at CCNY's Branding and Integrated Communications program, and she's here to t...
May 22, 2024•26 min
Todd Turner is a talented graphic designer who's carved out a fun niche in Out of Home. Lately, he's formed a partnership with Richard Molinaro called Up to Something in North Carolina. Todd and Richard create unforgettable OOH for brands, agencies and media companies. But it's Todd's side gig that grabbed our attention. Henry Gomez and I talked to Todd about his crazy fun and powerfully effective training tool called...Wash-a-Pig. What's a graphic designer doing concocting a cool concepting too...
May 15, 2024•35 min
No Single Individual is a unique business model. It is a company of woment strategists who work for legacy shops like Deutsch NY, FCB NY and TBWA\Chiat Day LA. Founded by Christine Olivas in 2021, No Single Individual is an "all-freelance firm [that] provides ancillary strategy and account teams to agencies across the globe, from the industry’s biggest names to hyper-local creative shops," according to its LinkedIn profile. In other words, when agencies struggle with impossible assignments, Chri...
May 08, 2024•58 min
My co-host Henry Gomez stays connected with other strategtists, especially on LinkedIn. He received an email recently from Mark Pollard, author of Strategy Is Your Words, and a well-known and respected strategist and strategy coach. Mark had compiled a list of the top ten traits he thought all strategists shared. My buddy Henry saw a similarity between these ten traits and some things he and I talked about on our first episode of The Brief Bros. So Henry and I thought this would be a great topic...
May 01, 2024•23 min
Henry Gomez and I relish every chance we get to feature a young advertising talent who is already shaking things up. This week we continue our series of interviews with recent grads of US and UK advertising programs. Allow us to introduce you to Elizabeth Gordon. Elizabeth is a 2023 grad of the U of Minn's Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communications. And she came recommended to us by our friend and occasional substitute co-host, Mark Jenson, senior lecturer at Hubbard. Elizabeth landed ...
Apr 24, 2024•43 min
Most creatives aspire to become creative director one day. And most creatives believe they have the chops to lead a creative department. But making the leap from art director or copywriter into a leadership role takes more than a promotion. Our guest this week is an old friend, TJ Bennett, owner and creative director at The Pudding Factory. He's back to talk about his coaching practice to help aspiring creatives make that leap to creative directorship successfully and with confidence. Henry Gome...
Apr 17, 2024•57 min
Join Henry Gomez and me for Part 2 of our conversation with a master of the artform, Neal Foard. He tells us more about his new online, self-directed tutorials at Storyfire to help you practice and polish your own stories. So sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn and take it all in. This is good, old-fashioned entertainment. For small group and corporate training in writing inspiring creative briefs, contact Howard Ibach at creativebriefworkshops.com for availability.
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr
For 30-odd years, Neal Foard was an advertising copywriter and creative director, working on major brands like Toyota. Then he morphed into what I call the Garrisoin Keillor of the Internet. He's a storyteller extraordinare, whose mellifluous voice is part velvet fog, part maple syrup. With thousands of presentations under his belt, Neal stands in front of a black screen and shares his life experiences every week, with a single goal in mind: remind us that life is so much easier when people like...
Apr 03, 2024•46 min
Mark Liebert leads the Marketing Training & Development Center at the ANA. His team of dedicated professionals connect subject-matter experts with ANA members to enhance their marketing and advertising skills. Since the beginning of our podcast, Henry Gomez and I have revisited the subject of training many times. So today, we meet an experienced trainer in his own right, and also an exceptional leader with the largest client-side brand trade group on the planet. If anyone can shed light on t...
Mar 27, 2024•57 min
It seems like an obvious question: What is the strategy? But even asking it opens a can of worms. What do you mean by "strategy"? Then you can ask, why do so few briefs ask this question? This week, Henry Gomez and I tackle the conundrum of what role strategy plays in writing a creative brief and whether the question belongs on the brief. For one-on-one, small group and corporate training in writing inspiring creative briefs, contact Howard Ibach at creativebriefworkshops.com for availability.
Mar 20, 2024•20 min
Henry Gomez and I decided to take a breather and talk about AI. No panic. No exaggeration. No gloom and doom. Just the real stuff. It's here and it ain't goin' away. What's its role in advertising creative? In the creative brief? This is only the first of what we both think will be many conversations. But after insightful chats with two guests, Tim Brunelle and Sherry Horowitz, both experts in AI, we needed to take stock. Let us know what you think. For small group and corporate training in writ...
Mar 13, 2024•24 min
What is a manifesto? Is it a creative brief? Or like a creative brief? And how does a so-called "manifesto" help us understand a brand? These are some of the questions Henry Gomez and I discuss today on The Brief Bros. We review and dissect one of seventeen brand manifestos, this one for Avis, posted on LinkedIn recently by Lonnie Elliot.
Mar 06, 2024•21 min
Who says the advertising industry can't attract ambitious young talent? Not our guests this week on The Brief Bros. We welcome Anna Clayden and Hope Whitehead, art director and copywriter respectively. They teamed up while studying at London's premier School of Communication Arts. They join Henry Gomez and me to shed bright light on the rigors of SCA and where it has led them. And they share a special announcement as well—their first full-time gig at a London agency! For small group and corporat...
Feb 28, 2024•1 hr
Writing a great brief depends on more than great writing. Agency vet and Strategy Finishing School founder Julian Cole joins Henry Gomez and me in an insider's look at briefs. You'll learn something new after this week's episode of The Brief Bros. For example, did you know that an "artist" and a "detective" creative director respond differently to the same brief? This is only one insight Julian shares in our discussion. We only scratched the surface with Julian, whose work with agencies around t...
Feb 21, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay. But like all new toys, what we don't understand tends to scare us. So this week, The Brief Bros. invited Sherry Horowitz, the self-described AI Conjurer, to talk about the intricacies of creating imagery with AI using language prompts. Her deep knowledge revealed how hard it is to use AI to its fullest. And why AI is also so powerful. There is much more to learn, but Sherry shed light on possibilities. This is a conversation you cannot miss.
Feb 14, 2024•1 hr 8 min
We welcome the creative chairman of BBDO/Singapore, Tay Guan Hin, to this week's episode of The Brief Bros. Henry Gomez and I asked Guan about his career in art and graphic design. Guan revealed a common thread among many creatives: his parents had other plans for him. But his passions led him to advertising anyway. His new book Collide: Embracing Conflict to Boost Creativity, demonstrates how thirty years in advertising gave him a unique insight on creativity. And he shows readers how to use co...
Feb 07, 2024•54 min
This week, Henry Gomez and I discuss a video posted by Julian Cole, a link to which we included below. He explains the differences between a marketing and a creative brief. Julian is a noted strategist, teacher and mentor to young strategists. And we have invited him to be a guest on The Brief Bros in the coming weeks. Henry and I dissect and expand on his thinking. The training I offer on brief writing focuses primarily on marketers. Henry's ad agency work focuses on the needs of his creatives....
Jan 31, 2024•18 min
In Part 2 of our conversation with Ben Levy, creative director and presentation coach at SellItGreat.com, Henry Gomez and I ask Ben about "nuts 'n bolts" problems all presenters face. This is a fascinating and enlightening conversation you don't want to miss. For one-on-one, small group and corporate training in writing inspiring creative briefs, contact Howard Ibach at creativebriefworkshops.com for availability.
Jan 24, 2024•46 min
Presentation Coach Ben Levy has made just about every mistake you can imagine as a presenter of creative work. And he'll show you how you can avoid them in his training on creative presentations. This week on The Brief Bros., Ben is our guest in a two-part episode. He is the founder and Head Coach at SellItGreat.com, and he shares his experience, his research and his practical advice to help creatives overcome hurdles that get in the way of selling the work they believe in. Part 2 next week. For...
Jan 17, 2024•45 min
From the "Shameless Commerce Division" of The Brief Bros. (no apologies to Car Talk's Click & Clack), today Henry Gomez quizzes me about my creative brief workshops, my promise to attendees who want to learn how to write better briefs, my teaching philosophy and how I got started. You can get the details at creativebriefworkshops.com. Batteries not included, no assembly required, not available in stores. For one-on-one, small group and corporate training in writing inspiring creative briefs,...
Jan 10, 2024•15 min
As our first episode of the New Year, Henry Gomez and I review 2023 and talk about what stood out for us on The Brief Bros. Amazingly enough, Henry and I wrapped up our third year together! And we still like each other! Enjoy this conversation as we share our thoughts on what mattered most in our on-going conversation about briefs, briefing and advertising. Till next time! Bye-bye! For one-on-one, small group and corporate training in writing inspiring creative briefs, contact Howard Ibach at cr...
Jan 03, 2024•14 min
This week on The Brief Bros. Henry Gomez and I review and discuss a tool created by a friend and past guest, Tim Brunelle, called the Creative Brief Coach. ChatGPT is everywhere, causing either havoc or joy depending on your point of view. Tim's tool is a worthy topic because he laid out the details of its development, and gave Henry and me an argument to follow and debate. Join us as we dissect Tim's contributions. For one-on-one, small group and corporate training in writing inspiring creative...
Dec 27, 2023•17 min
Henry Gomez and I review an undated creative brief for the UK's famous soft drink Tango, ad agency unknown (if you're privy to the info, please share in the comments section). I featured this brief in my first book on the creative brief, and I included it in my rotating list of briefs for my creative brief workshops, but I have not used it in many years. Henry and I share our thoughts and I see new opportunities for it as a training tool. For one-on-one, small group and corporate training in wri...
Dec 20, 2023•20 min
In our ongoing series, Henry Gomez and I review a creative brief written by a London-based agency for its client, BBC. The brief was written to create a new campaign to promote the BBC's on-air coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. We even have creative so you can ask yourself if the work answers the brief. For one-on-one, small group and corporate training in writing inspiring creative briefs, contact Howard Ibach at creativebriefworkshops.com for availability.
Dec 13, 2023•24 min
Gabi Kinney joins Henry Gomez and me this week in a continuation of our series on young talent in our industry. Gabi is a recent grad of the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the U of Minnesota, a familiar name to anyone who follow The Brief Bros. This young woman is blazing a powerful path for herself at Broadhead and we delight in quizzing her about her career trajectory. If you want to hear some insightful and astute advice on managing your career, don't miss this conver...
Dec 06, 2023•50 min
Kudos to our friends Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler, past guests on The Brief Bros., for their partnership with the Marketoonist Tom Fishburne and the Institute for Practitioners of Advertising (IPA), the oldest professional organization in our industry. They've assembled a Compendium of brilliantly drawn cartoons that reflect their global survey on creative briefs, published in 2021, and is available to you at betterbriefs.com. Henry Gomez and I selected one of Tom's fun cartoons to dis...
Nov 29, 2023•18 min
Today, Henry Gomez and I examine a creative brief for a popular frozen foods grocery story in the UK, Iceland. We love briefs for everyday products and services because these are the "widgets" advertising professionals cut their teeth on, creatively and strategically. That they are "everyday" things makes them real and necessary, but also challenges brief writers to find a clever and strategically sound pathway to a good creative solution. This brief, written by strategists at London's hhcl/red ...
Nov 22, 2023•23 min
Henry Gomez and I have added a new series to The Brief Bros.: Conversations with recent college grad about their new careers. Today, we are proud to present Tyrese Leverty, a recent grad from the University of Minnesota's Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communications. He was recommended to us by our old friend Mark Jenson, a venerable instructor at Hubbard. Tyrese is a brand planner and he shares his experiences in his evolving role at Carmichael Lynch.
Nov 15, 2023•56 min
Did you know that the famous poster of Uncle Sam pointing his finger and declaring, "I want you..." is more than 100 years old? Henry Gomez and I stumbled across this iconic image as we searched for old ads to discuss, and we decided it warranted an episode of its own. We have good reasons, too. Tune in and find out.
Nov 08, 2023•13 min
