Happy New Year, we hope you've had a fantastic holiday filled with much deserved rest, good food, and even better company.

We're starting 2025 with strong with TBWA veteran-turned-indy CCO Chuck Monn.

Among many things, he takes us into the mind of an award-winning creative director who touched cultural pillars like the Olympics, Visa, and Apple. He leaves brands more memorable than he found them, and has shaped iconic work like 'Mac vs PC' and 'Shot on iPhone'.

Our top 5 moments:

"You're not making ads, you're making communication that helps you understand how an iPhone works."

"The way it started having a life of its own, and expanding to mean how people see the world through Apple products, was such a powerful reminder of the importance of platforms and brands. Building something that people can play with and make bigger."

"These people would fly out to where their billboard was... there was one woman who had never been on a plane before who flew out to be in front of her billboard in Times Square... it was a heart-warming, lovely connection between the brand and the people who make it."

"Between Chiat and MAL, I was between those two places for 25 years... after 15 years working on Apple, I just needed a break. I have two kids... I just needed for the first time to just be dad. That was really important."

"My first job in Chiat I took off for like 7 hours because I was working on a pitch at 3 in the morning and started at Chiat at 9 the next day.

Find us us on Twitter, Instagram, and at The Bad Podcast dot com

Our Favorite Stories

• Alec's journey as the "Photoshop kid" at Grey Entertainment, helping build the Batman movie's first website.
• His reflections on surviving the Web 1.0 era and the exciting chaos of startups in 1990s New York.
• Using virtual reality for healthcare. Talk about ahead of the curve! Alec tells us about a 1993 college paper he wrote at Columbia on VR as a treatment for schizophrenia.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• Alec's transition from startups to healthcare advertising, driven by his desire for stability after his daughter’s birth.
• Leading engagement strategy at Area 23 and Neon, crafting human-centered storytelling for pharmaceutical clients.
• Exploring the potential of AI tools like MidJourney and Leonardo.ai for creating impactful healthcare narratives.

Career Advice We’ll Live With

• Embrace storytelling non-linearly; start with the compelling "hook" and let context follow.
• Use new technologies as creative extensions, not replacements, to enhance ideation and storytelling efficiency.
• Stay curious and connected: Participate in communities (like MidJourney’s Discord) and actively seek inspiration from creators and innovators.
• Balance passion with teaching—spread your enthusiasm to inspire and uplift others in your field.

Find us us on Twitter, Instagram, and at The Bad Podcast dot com

Our favorite stories:

• From record label & photography studio to ad agency; shaping incredible brands like Lollapalooza and Pitchfork to now Kimberly-Clark and Patagonia
• Renting a $700/month, 2,000 sq ft industrial space to make band posters & album art, produce music, and photograph musicians.
• Creating Someoddpilot at 25 - "the gusto, the sincerity, the sureness even though I had no idea what I was doing"
• "I'm the kid that walked out of art school and wanted to keep that feel going... of critique, of discovery... that's the dream. That's why artists are artists."
• The record label was still going but it wasn't working and making money, I considered it a failure. But looking back it was exactly what I should be doing, what I loved doing.
• "I never wanted to web design, it was just a giant door for us to walk through in 1999."
• Launching the Public Works gallery

Big moments from doing the work:

• "I had shown artwork in galleries when I graduated college and thought that was the end all be all... once I had a chance to experience that, and contrast with band shows, and feel the palpable difference of what it was like to be in those environments, it got me thinking that there were other ways to apply my skills... the camaraderie... the art gang that can laugh and pal around and make work, and get excited about something..."
• Making a better website for The Empty Bottle and charting a rebrand. T-shirts, flyers, and digital for $3,000 of bar tabs.
• "Pitchfork were the only ones who got up five days a week and published 3 articles by 9am" - sending records to Pitchfork and getting an in with the intern up the street. "They do websites too!"
• An age-old problem: "I have a legacy brand with a generation of users that treasure and love what we're doing but we need to modernize and bring it forward to the future, expand what it can be, mean something to a new consumer, but not lose the thread on the old"

Career advice we'll live with:

• "I've always been a Straight-A student that had a bad mouth... I've always felt good about expressing very honestly and very vulnerably... there's something about cursing or speaking as yourself."
• "You didn't know what you were doing... there's no course at that age to explain diplomatic or democratic creative decision making... "
• "I didn't know what graphic design was but I knew I needed to make this flyer."
• On getting a foot in the door: "How do you get half your body stuck in the door screaming your head off. Even if you know someone, they don't always know."
• "Game of Thrones is a great example of a creative property that should be for nerds only. By definition it should be for DnD nerds, but what ended up happening is that everyone in the world loved that show because it was so well done, and the story was so rich."
• "You aren't going to pull the wool over anyone's eyes... who you are and the mythology around the work you are doing... it's not going to come from any briefs or approaches, that's going to come from a badass dedication to the heart and soul of what this business is, and going out in the world and communicating it in a way that turns heads, and inspires the shit out of people." - making a friend for life.

Find us us on Twitter, Instagram, and at The Bad Podcast dot com