E95: A conversation with Leticia Rita, co-founder, HolaBrief.com
Airs December 7, 2022 Henry Gomez and I welcome Leticia Rita, co-founder of an online creative brief platform called HolaBrief.com. It’s a free customizable briefing template designed for small to medium-sized agencies, design firms and start-ups. Leticia, a former creative, comes to us from Spain. She felt a similar pang of frustration as I did […]
The filters we hide behind.
I was in Orlando, Florida, recently doing a couple workshops. I had the good fortune of being able to visit one of the more famous theme parks where I happened to watch a light show just after sunset. It was a remarkable sight. More remarkable still was something I witnessed as I took in the […]
E94: Creative Review—Northern Tool + Equipment
Airs November 30, 2022 Henry Gomez and I bring you another Creative Review this week. Our aim with these Reviews is to focus on real products. Northern Tool + Equipment fits the bill perfectly. NT+E is one of the nation’s leading retailers of high-quality tools and equipment for professionals and DIYers. Today we discuss and […]
The burger account syndrome.
“We work in the _______ industry and you don’t have a ________ industry creative brief. You don’t know our business.” I hear this only after my creative brief workshop and only when there was resistance to my training. I never hear it when things go well. The truth is that the number of outstanding creative […]
E93: A conversation with Paul MacFarlane.
Airs November 23, 2022 Henry Gomez and I welcome one of our more devoted viewers and fans, Paul MacFarlane. He’s also a fellow traveler committed to writing and advocating for great creative briefs. His work as a creative director and brand strategist for his own company, The 1101 Experiment, demonstrates how he puts walks the […]
What makes a creative brief writer?
Thirty seven years ago, I started my career in the advertising business. I wrote this essay seven years ago and am re-publishing it today because I still believe every word I wrote in 2015. I’ve put in more than a quarter century at ad agencies and corporations. The last few years I’ve devoted to writing, […]
E92: The return of Bob Hoffman.
Airs November 16, 2022 Henry Gomez and I welcome our friend Bob Hoffman, whose new book Adscam: How Online Advertising Gave Birth to One of History’s Greatest Frauds, and Became a Threat to Democracy is the theme of today’s episode. Bob is the first guest to make a return visit to The Brief Bros. The […]
What all good single-minded propositions have in common.
(I’ll break down the single-minded proposition to its basic elements on The Brief Bros., my video podcast. You can also follow me on Youtube.) Many years ago, about a week into a new job I’d taken as creative director on a major international brand, I was reviewing a creative brief that had been approved by […]
E91: A conversation with Patricia Yanez from ESPN.
Airs November 9, 2022 Henry Gomez and I welcome Patricia Yanez, Associate Director, Brand & Original Content Marketing at ESPN. Patricia came to my attention through our friend Professor Richard L. Gant at NYU, a past guest on #thebriefbros. Patricia gave a talk to Professor Gant’s Event Marketing & Strategies class. Turns out, Patricia is […]
Collaborating on a brief and asking for feedback on a brief are two different things.
Good copywriters remember this mantra: “Tell them what you’re gonna tell them, tell them, tell them what you told ‘em.” It’s repetitive, yes, but instructional. The idea is to remember as a sales person (and that’s what copywriters are: we sell stuff with our words), that readers (or viewers or listeners) don’t remember things the […]
