Book

My first ebook—Ad Brains: Conversations with Advertising’s Icons, Rebels, and Rulers—is now available from Amazon.com, Kobo.com, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books, and Google Play.

Cover art by Jason Walton and Yuhang Wang

I started interviewing people when I was 18 years old and a freshman at Franklin & Marshall College. One thing I know about myself—I have a journalist’s temperament, which I bring to the ad business, sometimes successfully. In this new collection of 18 interviews with 19 advertising professionals, there’s a series of successful moments where people I admire and respect get a chance to wax poetic about life, business, art, and more.

Some of the people featured in the book: Rob Schwartz, Luke Sullivan, Sally Hogshead, Amber Case, Douglas Lowell, John January, Ernie Schenck, G.B. Veerman, and Katherine Hollar Barnard. I’m honored that these fine ladies and gents ever agreed to speak freely with me in the first place. They know so much and do so much.

Looking back and reflecting on the collection and the common threads throughout, I think we all share a common desire to help others see the ad business as a place for dedicated professionals who care about one another and creativity’s role in growing businesses.

I hope you are ready to buy the book today, to read it, gift it, and review it. It’s a slim collection but one that took a dozen years to make.

A Five-Star Review on Amazon

I really enjoyed Ad Brains. When you’ve been working in the ad business as long as I have, you tend to gain a veneer of cynicism. Well, this book helped chip a fair bit of that away as it reminded me of all the smart, interesting people that work in the business. David Burn did a great job of giving us a peak into the minds of many of them. This book is definitely worth the read for both newbies to the industry, as well as the road-worn folks like myself. A fun read!