624: Chris Beresford-Hill - Writing Excellent Cold-Emails, Taking Responsibility of Your Career, Pushing Your Edges, Becoming Dave Matthews' Pen Pal, Building Culture, & Leading a Creative Agency
Chris Beresford-Hill, the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO, shares insights from his impressive career in advertising. He emphasizes the art of writing effective cold emails, highlighting the need for specificity and authenticity. Chris discusses the importance of taking responsibility for one’s career and the value of nurturing connections through shared meals. He reflects on the creative risks taken during Super Bowl campaigns, his journey from junior copywriter, and the cultural transformations that follow major setbacks. A must-listen for aspiring creatives!
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Cold Emailing Tips
Be specific in both your praise and your ask when writing cold emails.
Avoid generic requests like "Can I pick your brain?"
question_answer ANECDOTE
The Mark Cuban Ad
As an intern, Chris Beresford-Hill secured Mark Cuban's approval for a Hummer ad he wrote.
This proactive approach, taking responsibility unasked, led to his first job.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Pen Pals with Dave Matthews
Chris Beresford-Hill became pen pals with Dave Matthews by learning about him through liner notes and reaching out.
He asked specific questions and offered gifts, fostering a genuine connection.
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In 'The Culture Code', Daniel Coyle delves into the secrets of highly successful groups by examining some of the world’s most effective organizations, such as the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, Pixar, and the San Antonio Spurs. Coyle identifies three universal skills that generate cohesion and cooperation: building safety through belonging cues, sharing vulnerability to foster trust, and establishing purpose through clear narratives. The book combines leading-edge science, real-world examples, and practical strategies to help leaders and teams create an environment where innovation thrives, problems are solved, and expectations are exceeded.
The Creative Act
A Way of Being
Rick Rubin
In *The Creative Act: A Way of Being*, Rick Rubin distills the wisdom he has gained from a lifetime of working with artists across various genres. The book is not just about music production but about the broader creative process and how it applies to everyone's life. Rubin emphasizes the importance of reconnecting with a state of innocence, being aware of the world, and tapping into what he calls 'Source'—an infinite and constant flow of ideas and inspiration. The book is structured around 78 areas of thought, providing practical wisdom, philosophical insights, and encouragement for anyone seeking to enhance their creative expression.
Setting the Table
Danny Meyer
In this landmark book, Danny Meyer recounts his experiences and the lessons he learned in developing his philosophy of Enlightened Hospitality. Meyer started Union Square Cafe at the age of 27 and has since built a restaurant empire. His philosophy, which emphasizes strong in-house relationships and customer satisfaction, is applicable to any business. The book covers various aspects of running a restaurant, including selecting real estate, hiring, training, and providing exceptional service. Meyer's approach to hospitality extends to guests, the community, suppliers, and investors, and he provides practical advice on how to maintain long-term success through these relationships.
Creativity, Inc.
Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
Amy Wallace
Ed Catmull
Ed Catmull and Edwin E. Catmull and Amy Wallace
In this book, Ed Catmull shares insights on how to build and maintain a creative culture within an organization. Drawing from his experiences at Pixar, Catmull discusses the importance of open communication, risk-taking, and protecting the creative process. The book includes candid discussions, anecdotes about Pixar's film development, and lessons on managing innovation and creativity. It emphasizes the need for a nurturing work environment and the importance of storytelling in business.
Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes
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Chris Beresford-Hill is the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO. Previously he spent 2 years as North America President and CCO of Ogilvy, where he helped bring the agency and its clients a new level of relevance. He brought Workday to the Super Bowl, led the team that brought in the Verizon account, and one of the biggest Super Bowl campaigns ever, “Can't B Broken,” featuring Beyonce, and created the most celebrated Super Bowl campaign of 2024, the social & influencer lead "Michael CeraVe," for CeraVe. Chris and his teams have won every award for creativity and effectiveness many times over. He has been included in ADWEEK Best Creatives, the ADWEEK 100, and Business Insider’s Most Creative People in Advertising.
Notes:
Cold Emails: Be specific in your praise and specific in your ask. The lame "Can I pick your brain" type emails get deleted and ignored because they aren't specific.
You never need permission to take responsibility. Chris learned this from Ed Catmull’s book Creativity Inc.… And he’s embodied this his entire career. The people who build huge careers take ownership of their own and regularly solve problems and improve their clients' and colleagues' lives. Chris has done this since his early days as an intern.
At any level taking on responsibility yourself, unasked, makes you stand out.
Competence combined with insane follow-through. For some clients, it takes 50 ideas to get to the one that will work. Creating a culture where the team can share all of their bad ideas safely to get to the one great one.
The creative process:
Brain dump everything. Purge your brain of everything it has.
When you think you're done, you're not. There's more. You have to get it all out.
"A lot of creative people aren't fully aware of the process or the structure, they just feel it (Rick Rubin).
"When you can see it lift off the page, you feel a sense of mastery over it."
Chris's first Super Bowl commercial -- Emerald Nuts. He won it because he was both funny and added the fact that the product provided energy. Most people only covered one part, Chris did both.
Push your edges - Chris is like Lionel Messi. He's always walking around in the office, asking questions, looking for ideas, being curious. Then he sees an opportunity and goes for it 100%.
Chris has a standing reservation every week at the same restaurant where he meets with a mentor, mentee, or peer to deepen the important relationships in his life. That would be a good idea for us all to do.
Chris was pen-pals with Dave Matthews for 8 years.
Chris saw that they recorded at Bearsville studios and wrote a letter to Dave there. He also said, "Show up with gifts." He gave Dave a Beatles Bootlegged album.
A leader takes what comes and then turns it into an opportunity.
The formula is Competence + Insane Follow-Through.
How to build relationships: Meet with people in person. Get drunk with them. Do hard work with them. Go through something bad with them. Laugh with them.
I got hired from my internship by cold calling Mark Cuban to get him to approve of using his name in an ad.
The best ideas are often bad in their first moments, or massively wrong, and then someone flips it or unlocks it. You have to stay on things and play around.
I made my first ad by going through a garbage can to learn how to write a script and sending a bunch of Budweiser scripts to my boss.
The art of finding an idea on the edge of possible, and the value of going over your skis when on the cusp of greatness - having a stomach for it. I’ve told a lie to keep things moving on every great campaign I was part of.
I learned the best lesson in leadership when we lost our biggest account (Accenture). I put Danny Meyer's mentality into practice, and we took that moment to put the business and clients second and play for each other. Culture carried us.
Culture is built by the stories we tell and the behaviors we highlight.
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