BRIAN C. PRICE
ADVERTISING & BRANDED CONTENT PERSON
about
Brian C. Price Reveals What Makes Him Tick and Why His Job is 'Fun for a Living'
A glimpse into the mind of the award-winning senior ad executive shows his focus is on fun, excellence, emotion, and making a difference to his clients, his teams and his audience
by BRIAN C. PRICE
Dec 30, 2023 1:33 p.m. PT
Brian C. Price
Oh, hey. Didn’t see you there. My name’s Brian. Despite my youthful exuberance and ageless disposition, I’ve actually been an integrated marketing, advertising and branded content specialist for 25 years now. Yeah, twenty-five. Now pick your jaw up off the ground and keep reading.
In those 25 years, I’ve been perfecting the craft of learning what problems my clients need to solve, and then developing exciting, one-of-a-kind solutions for them that meet or exceed their objectives through the art of creative storytelling.
It's one hell of a job. I often describe it as having fun for a living. Working with brilliant clients, leading incredible teams, and producing mind-blowing, standard-setting creative. I get to make custom promos for TV and social, integrate brands into TV shows, write branded short films, produce docushorts. Live action, animated, custom events, you name it. I've even made the coveted Super Bowl commercial.
And if that’s not enough of a dream, I’ve done this while working with some of my favorite actors like Denzel, Samuel L. Jackson, and Martin Lawrence, legendary athletes like Steph Curry, LeBron, Lisa Leslie and Magic Johnson, and hip-hop icons like Snoop, Ice Cube, and Ludacris. Even some of my childhood heroes like Optimus Prime, Papa Smurf, and Chewbacca (two of which are even taller than they look on screen).
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To me, that’s fun for a living. And so is exchanging dad jokes with Stan Lee on the walk to set for a Spider-Man shoot. Or watching a 7-foot NBA player wrestle a rival team’s mascot through the streets of a miniature city while your favorite rapper Pharoahe Monch’s “Simon Says” played in the background. Fun is interviewing a MacArthur Genius award winner for a show I created and hosted at Disney. It's sitting next to Captain Obvious (in costume) for two hours at the ESPY awards. Or doubling for Terrence Jenkins' right hand as an emergency hand model during a Jeep commercial shoot.
Fun for a living is making Linda Hamilton laugh when she arrived on set because I chose to wear a replica of her Jetsons t-shirt from the first Terminator movie. Or having the opportunity to throw a Hollywood launch party for a U.S. snowboarding Olympic gold medalist's video game, with a custom ice sculpture outdoors, a stuffed polar bear in the DJ booth, and Iron Sheik himself (donning his championship wrestling belt over his shoulder) posing for photos inside with Audrina from The Hills. Because why not, right?
I’ve gone from learning the ropes of branded content, to leading, coaching and mentoring strategy and creative teams. Teams that have laughed together, cried together, and no doubt hit more unexpected snags than a home makeover show weekend marathon. But we figure out solutions to those problems, crush our goals, make clients happy, win awards (as in, once my team won 30 awards in just a 5-year stretch), and have a ton of fun throughout the journey.
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I get it, "Brian, this is just advertising." It’s not saving lives or battling illnesses. But I take a lot of pride in motivating people around me to match my energy level, and push the limits of creativity. It’s important to me because making people FEEL something matters. My reward is when a viewer smiles, laughs, sheds a tear, gets goosebumps, or has a change of heart. It’s when clients burst out laughing at a great pitch. When an email hits my inbox saying that what I shared during a meeting moved someone to tears. Or when a team member tells me they’ve never had a team leader care this much about their personal growth and development.
My goosebumps happen when I’m part of a production, I get to a shoot, I look around at all the people working on set, and I know that because I helped get this creative project greenlit, all those women and men scrambling around me are earning a living for themselves and their families that day, they’re doing what they do best, and they’re getting a chance to do what they love.
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My name's Brian. I’m a guy who’s loved the game of advertising and creative storytelling since I was a kid. And now I get to change the game and push it forward in a way that inspires others. But also, in a way that inspires me.
So yeah, that’s who I am and that's what I do. How about you?