Dear Baby Creatives: The brief is not the enemy
Dear Baby Creatives, The brief is not the enemy. Is it restrictive, reductive, and occasionally written by someone who doesn’t fully understand exactly what creative does? Absolutely. But even that …
Give me a passive-aggressive brand-on-brand snarkback.
Someone tell me who willed Fast Food CEO Mukbang into existence. Why did Wendy’s U.S. President Pete Suerken go on Xitter to very pointedly eat a Wendy’s hamburger (while very …
Unrelated to Advertising: Robert Smalls, who stole a Confederate ship and piloted it to freedom
Do I usually do the Famous Person in Black History kind of profiles? No, and no judgment — I just lean more toward contextual stuff. But now here I am, …
The 2026 Creepy Awards Take a Dark Turn
I introduced the Creepy Awards (a companion piece to our annual Weepy Awards) in 2023 as a celebration of the weird-ass stuff many ad agencies crank out every year for …
How Polling Language Can Mess With Your Head
(Content note: This isn’t a post about politics, but it definitely has politics, and you can probably guess what kind. The “close tab” button is the little X at the …
Happy Friday, this Italian commercial is bonkers.
Ads I Wish I’d Ever Been Drunk Enough to Make? Happy Friday, here’s an absolutely batshit Italian commercial for Italian breakfast snack Buondì Motta from 2017. Do you have to …
Ads I Wish I’d Made: Adult Diapers Edition
We are here today to celebrate the Diaper King of Chicago. Because His Highness Adam Greenberg went on LinkedIn to share a story about outdoor advertising and adult diapers that …
Unrelated to Advertising: This is the time to examine your values.
God knows this isn’t a place I like to get loud or controversial, because Career, but some things are important enough to do it anyway: If you’ve been throwing your …
Why “Love, Actually” is a bad movie and also a holiday classic
As the holidays draw to a close, decorations start coming down (mine stay up until January 6, but you do you), seasonal playlists return to their li’l media caves or …
Merry Christmas from Caperton Gillett Creative
Y’all are the best gifts a mouthy, opinionated, moderately external-validation-seeking freelance copywriter could have, and I treasure your place as colleagues and, in many cases, friends. May you have the …