The guest
Chris Beresford-Hill: Award-winning advertising creative; worldwide chief creative officer at Ogilvy, formerly chief creative officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day and an eight-year run at BBDO under David Lubars. Known for Super Bowl ads (Emerald Nuts' Robert Goulet, Mountain Dew's Bryan Cranston Shining spot) and the Adidas Billie Jean King sneaker stunt.
What this episode covers
Chris Beresford-Hill traces his path from unpaid intern at Boston agency Modernista to top-tier creative director, anchored by stories about persuasion and audacity. He breaks down craft techniques (dumping every idea then 'sifting the vomit,' writing a sentence and forcing himself to finish it) and the management philosophy of making fast, decisive calls because time kills momentum and deals. Recurring lessons include reducing a client's message to one compelling truth, making your idea easy to say yes to, and trusting the 'getting away with it' feeling that signals an idea is special. He shares behind-the-scenes tales of his first Super Bowl ad, a killed Daniel Day-Lewis Mountain Dew concept, the Adidas stunt where he lied to a client, and the Napster 'Crashster' campaign that got killed at 22. He closes with book and documentary recommendations plus how hard fitness at Tone House replaced meditation for managing anxiety.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This
Luke Sullivan
“It's an amazing book. So it's really, it's a really smart trek, micro apprenticeship. But that book is perfect.”
“So there's a book called Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This, that's authored by Luke Sullivan. It's an amazing book. That book is perfect.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
MediaRecommended
South Park: 6 Days to Air
“It's so inspiring to see those two power through. And there's just a ton of stuff that you can relate to.”
“Number one, South Park, 6 Days to Air, looking at the pressure these guys are under to come up with and do a show.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
MediaRecommended
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
“And it's amazing. And you don't have to like Metallica to love it. So that's an amazing study on high-performing creative team dynamics.”
“I love the Metallica doc Some Kind of Monster because it gets into doing creative within a team and chemistry and how challenging that can be.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
MediaRecommended
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
“And just seeing the obsession in the craft of it, you're like, I do not work hard enough. I just want to go and write something after I see that.”
“And then the last one, and the most underrated is Conan O'Brien Can't Stop.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Bird by Bird
Anne Lamott
“Tim: Oh, so good. An amazing book. And I think about it all the time.”
“but I read a book, I know you know this book called Bird by Bird. And I think about it all the time.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
ProductRecommended
Tone House
“that has been such a gift for me. My first Tone House class, $34. That was the $34 purchase that changed everything.”
“There's a gym in New York City called Tone House. And now me and a fairly regular group are there five days a week, six days a week.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
BookRecommendedISBN verified
The Easy Way to Quit Smoking
Allen Carr
“So that book is probably a life-saving book. I've given it to four or five friends and all four or five of them just read it and never smoked again.”
“One of them is called The Easy Way to Quit Smoking by Allen Carr. So that book is probably a life-saving book.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
BookRecommendedISBN verified
The Culture Code
Daniel Coyle
“I think you would not only love the book. that's one of the few things that I reread every year for the last two, three years.”
“And then the other one that I love, and I know you know this book, but The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
MediaRecommended
Conan O'Brien Learns Korean and Makes It Weird
“Trust me, folks, find it on YouTube. It is beyond hilarious.”
“there's a video called something like Conan O'Brien Learns Korean and Makes It Weird, which is like eight minutes long. It is beyond hilarious.”— Tim Ferriss
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Levels of the Game
John McPhee
“this is an amazing way to get a taste test. It is so, so good.”
“There's a book called Levels of the Game by John McPhee, which is about one tennis match, a single tennis match involving Arthur Ashe.”— Tim Ferriss
ProductRecommended
Dr. Bronner's unscented baby soap
Dr. Bronner's
“I have used unscented baby soap from Dr. Bronner's forever and I really like it.”
“I have used unscented baby soap from Dr. Bronner's forever because it's just the least offensive to my system and I really like it.”— Tim Ferriss
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
BookReferenced
The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine
Allen Carr
“I listened to a derivative of that, but it's based on the same method, The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine. I listened to the audiobook.”— Tim Ferriss
MediaReferenced
The Push
Derren Brown
“you can watch these Netflix specials like The Push from this illusionist who's also an amazing graphic artist, Derren Brown.”— Tim Ferriss
BookReferencedISBN verified
Words That Work
Frank Luntz
“there are many books that I've read, like Blunt is the last name, Words That Work, who is, I believe, a Republican political strategist.”— Tim Ferriss
BookReferencedISBN verified
Excellent Advice for Living
Kevin Kelly
“he has a book of advice, short, pithy lines that started as a list of lessons learned on his 68th birthday to give to his kids.”— Tim Ferriss
MediaReferenced
MegaBall$
“it's almost like you start in a scene from the movie MegaBall$, which is a movie that features wheelchair basketball.”— Chris Beresford-Hill
Big reveals from this episode
- As a young intern Chris cold-emailed Mark Cuban for rights to use his name in a Dallas Mavericks Hummer ad; Cuban replied an hour later with 'Go for it. -M.', and showing that email to his boss got him his first paid job offer ($22,500/year).
- He landed his first Super Bowl ad (Emerald Nuts, 2005) at Goodby, Silverstein by asking the creative director for the assignment 'It doesn't even have to be formally assigned,' then quietly asked the strategist what would make the client like it more, learning peanuts could be positioned as 'energy.'
- The killed Mountain Dew idea: announce that Daniel Day-Lewis would star in a Super Bowl ad without telling him, then when he sued/refused, air Will Ferrell doing a 'There Will Be Blood' milkshake parody, legal feared Day-Lewis could be owed a royalty on every Pepsi product sold forever. It evolved into the Bryan Cranston / Tracee Ellis Ross 'Shining' Mountain Dew Zero Sugar spot.
- On the Adidas Billie Jean King US Open campaign, the client said they could only spray-paint Adidas shoes; Chris said 'Absolutely' but lied, betting Nike wouldn't attack a girls-in-sport initiative, and stacked the launch line with Converse, Air Force 1s and Sauconys, getting screamed at by global legal but winning industry acclaim.
- At 22, his Napster 'Crashster.com' campaign, paying regular people bounties up to $1M to crash live broadcasts wearing Napster shirts (even $2.5M for a live spacewalk), was killed by the board chairman one week before launch; he later saw it as a blessing that kept him on a slower learning path.
- On managing anxiety, Chris reveals he can't meditate, so instead of 'turning the dial to zero' he turns it to 10 with brutal morning workouts at NYC's Tone House gym, the first class made him vomit in the locker room.
Worth remembering
- His killer cold-email subject line to clients at TBWA (Apple's agency) was 'Hi, from Apple's ad agency,' which got a high response rate.
- His first boss Lance Jensen wrote the famous VW line 'On the road of life there are passengers and there are drivers. Drivers wanted.'
- Idea-generation technique: get every thought out, then trick yourself with prompts like 'What's the worst ad? What would David Fincher make? What if gravity didn't exist?', described as making yourself vomit then sifting it.
- The Emerald Nuts Super Bowl idea came from the KAWS 'reverse-painting into a corner' method, he wrote 'Robert Goulet appears and messes with your things' before he had the idea, forcing himself to finish the sentence.
- Editor Ian McKenzie tip: whatever an editor shows you first is usually closest to where you'll end up; early disappointment is your psychology not matching the work, not the work being bad.
- Best boss David Lubars (worldwide chairman/CCO of BBDO) taught him to 'make as many decisions as possible', fast gut calls keep everyone in motion and amplify a leader.
- As a test run for the Napster campaign, two interns crashed a live Boston morning-show interview with a then-little-known comic, Bill Burr.
- He recommends three creative-process documentaries: 'South Park: 6 Days to Air,' Metallica's 'Some Kind of Monster,' and 'Conan O'Brien Can't Stop.'
- He credits Allen Carr's 'The Easy Way to Stop Smoking' with making him quit cigarettes instantly, he's given it to 4-5 friends who all also quit.
- He rereads Daniel Coyle's 'The Culture Code' every year; he loves how it studies high-performing cultures from IDEO to the San Antonio Spurs to the Navy SEALs.
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