Chris Beresford-Hill — A Master Ad Man on Superbowl Confessions, How to Come Up With Great Ideas, Cold Emailing Mark Cuban, Doing Naughty Things, Poetic Mind Control, Creative Process and Insider Tips, How to Negotiate with Bosses and Clients, and The Power of a Stolen Snickers (#715)

Artist's rendering of Chris Beresford-Hill. — Illustration via 99designs

“The best ideas are when you’re like, ‘We can never do this. We’re going to get in big trouble. This is so wrong.’ When you feel that, you’ve got to stay there. You absolutely have to. That’s where all the interesting stuff happens.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

Chris Beresford-Hill is one of the most sought-after creative leaders in advertising and has led brands with a combined market cap of over $1 trillion. He was recently named Chief Creative Officer of the Americas at BBDO Worldwide.

Previously, Chris served as North America President and Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy and Chief Creative Officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day. His work for clients like Guinness, Mtn Dew, Dove, Workday, Adidas, FedEx, McDonalds, HBO, and Foot Locker has driven sales while putting dent after dent into pop culture.

Chris and his teams have won every award for creativity and effectiveness many times over, including five campaigns in the permanent collection at MoMA. He has been named to Adweek’s list of best creatives—Adweek’s Creative 100—Business Insider’s Most Creative People in Advertising, and the Ad Age 40 Under 40, back when he was under 40.

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Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, LMNT electrolyte supplement, and Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega fish oil.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#715: Chris Beresford-Hill — A Master Ad Man on Superbowl Confessions, How to Come Up with Great Ideas, Cold Emailing Mark Cuban, Doing Naughty Things, Poetic Mind Control, Creative Process and Insider Tips, How to Negotiate with Bosses and Clients, and The Power of a Stolen Snickers

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Want to hear another episode with someone who sells for profit and fun? Listen to my conversation with domain broker Andrew Rosener, in which we discussed securing brand identity, negotiating equity, a potential digital real estate boom, avoiding attraction to unnecessary pain, domain investors vs. domain squatters, the impact of AI on the domain industry and SEO business, and much more.

#711: Andrew Rosener — Becoming The Hokkaido Scallop King, Leasing Blue Chip URLs, Life Tenets from Charlie Tuna, Selling 8-Figure Domains, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Chris Beresford-Hill:

SHOW NOTES

[09:45] How Chris landed his first job with the help of Mark Cuban.

[16:28] Lessons learned from first boss Lance Jensen.

[20:37] Writing cold emails that work.

[25:27] What Chris’s dad taught him about workarounds.

[34:41] A golf strategy that inspired Super Bowl aspirations.

[37:07] Good taste and the Modernista style.

[41:22] Portfolio building.

[45:15] How Chris landed his first Super Bowl ad.

[58:46] Editing and expectations.

[1:02:58] Critical acclaim.

[1:03:35] Working with BBDO’s David Lubars.

[1:06:51] Working fast and resisting the urge to “gild the lily.”

[1:09:45] Shining a light on the Super Bowl LIV Mountain Dew commercial.

[1:15:48] The value of the vaguely naughty mindset.

[1:19:35] Making less more with Tor Myhren.

[1:21:59] The Adidas/Billie Jean King gambit.

[1:32:34] A Napster campaign crashes.

[1:38:54] Creative industry-related reading and viewing.

[1:45:11] Overcoming creative roadblocks.

[1:49:10] What Chris does in lieu of meditation.

[1:53:34] Books and videos that save lives and inspire curiosity.

[1:58:20] Best investments of less than $100.

[2:00:46] Capturing and saving good ideas for later.

[2:06:21] What words are worth.

[2:11:26] If the idea is good enough, there’s always more money.

[2:13:00] Give Chris a Foot Locker and he’ll take a mile.

[2:18:40] An ego check.

[2:23:16] Chris’s billboard.

[2:24:17] Parting thoughts.

MORE CHRIS BERESFORD-HILL QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I’m not here to do what the plan is today. I’m here to see what’s possible.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“The best ideas are when you’re like, ‘We can never do this. We’re going to get in big trouble. This is so wrong.’ When you feel that, you’ve got to stay there. You absolutely have to. That’s where all the interesting stuff happens.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“Another lesson — certainly in advertising, but anywhere — is the more ground you can cover in a room, the better because you start further ahead than if you constantly come together and split off and come together and split off.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“The best gift you can ever get is a first boss that has great taste or high standards.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“It just felt like I was able to create the life of my dreams, even if the day-to-day reality didn’t totally match it. And that was fine by me.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“This is not the kind of idea that gets green-lit. I had a stolen Snickers in my pocket, and I wanted out of that store.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“I liked my climb. I liked working my way up slowly and learning my craft and not doing something that might’ve made me very sought after and might’ve gotten me a bigger, better job faster. So it was a heartache, but it put me right on the path that I needed to have, which was the long path.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

“If the idea is good enough, there’s always more money.”
— Chris Beresford-Hill

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Rick Angleland

2 years ago

Thanks for the recommendation of Celine Cairo in your newsletter. But after having deleted the newsletter, I wanted to find out again which youtube video/song you recommended. I couldn’t find it in a search on this website. Is there a way to search contents of past newsletters?

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Paul

Reply to Rick Angleland

Hi, Rick –

The song was “The Fire.”

Best,

Team Tim Ferriss

Edd

can you post a recommended link to Tone House Classes?
I did a Google but I would like to make sure I get the right one.
Yes, listening to podcast, tried figuring out what he said, went looking for link here. So I went and crtl-F the transcript for invest to find out what he said. Great work on these notes by the way. I bought over 40 books through differences in different episodes.

Wesley

I’ve been listening to Tim’s podcast forever and have always found inpiration. This episode may be in my top 5 (if i had created a top 5). So many creative ideas and motivation. Thanks Tim for brining us this one!