A Breautiful Breversation With Bre Fern About Breverything
She creates, teaches, and mentors in the advertising industry. With her passion, she's changing the game for the better.
Click.
Time.
Unbeknownst to Bre Fern, I have a stopwatch app on my iPhone open and I’m timing how long she’s been talking about the changes she wants to see in the advertising industry.
She stops to breathe. I sneakily glance from my Zoom screen to the numbers on my phone. My eyes widen. I realize two things:
This interview is going to be hell to edit.
She’s really fucking passionate about being a creative — and that’s exactly what this industry needs.
Fern is a freelance Associate Creative Director with a passion for creating life-changing work, teaching what the advertising industry is all about, and mentoring rising creatives that need her feedback. Originally a law school student, she deferred to meditate with Chinese monks. Discovering Mad Men on a flight back home, she fell in love with the profession. “I remember thinking, wait — do people really do this?” she says. “This isn’t a fictional job? I went and looked it up, and boom.”
After getting her Master’s Degree in Copywriting from Miami Ad School, Fern took her talents to FCB New York where she worked on brands such as Oreo, Apple, and Netflix. After several stints at agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, Argonaut, and BBDO Worldwide, Fern continues to perfect her craft and make the industry a better place.
It’s not just through Fern’s work, that’s gotten her recognition from award juries in different countries, that she is changing the industry. She’s also paving the way for creatives behind her. She co-created Breaking Ad — an Instagram account that gives junior talent the inside scoop on how to grow the right way in the industry. When she’s not doing that, she’s taught at places like the Adhouse Advertising School and the Denver Ad School.
When even that’s not enough, Fern’s mentored creatives using what she’s went through to offer sage advice. “When people come to me with (these kinds of) problems, I’m able to speak from experience and tell them what I learned and how I bounced back,” she says.
All-in-all, we talk, laugh, and revel in our experiences for 45 minutes. I listen more than I speak. When our Google Meet chat window disappears from my screen, I realize I’ve learned just as much from her in our wide-ranging conversation as I’ve learned in ad school. She’s the kind of passionate creative that the industry needs to listen to in order to make some real change.
Here’s Fern on her one-of-a-kind journey, watching Mad Men, secret job markets, and more.
I start (nearly) every interview off with the same question. How’d you get into advertising? What’s your story?
I went to law school and I deferred because I started having panic attacks. I just wasn’t feeling up to par. That started my journey of spiritual discovery where I meditated with monks in China. On the way back, I started watching Mad Men while flying..
I remember thinking, wait — do people really do this? This isn’t a fictional job? I went and looked it up, and boom. It was real. Advertising, copywriting, being Don Draper, being Peggy Olsson. So I took a chance — I dropped out of law school and looked into advertising programs. I discovered Miami Ad School and started having conversations with people and realizing the makeup of the industry.
From there, I started to focus on having an impact wherever I went. I’m very much a networker. People remember me because I’m energetic, magnetic, and loud. I’m a force. I try to be memorable and create a distinct brand for myself. I made sure that at every internship or agency that I’ve worked on, I threw my hat in the ring and came across in a very unforgettable way. That’s how I got into FCB New York as a Junior Copywriter. And then, the rest was history. I progressed via my work at different agencies and getting experience with new brands. I really focused on developing my tone of voice, which has brought me here today. and getting better work and new brands. I developed my tone of voice.
You started at FCB in 2017. Now, you’re up at the Associate Creative Director level six years later. What are some of the lessons that you learned about being a creative on this journey?
Advertising is subjective. You can be good, but you might not feel like you’re good if you don’t have the right boss to help you develop your craft. You can stay there and plateau and think you suck.
My trajectory has revealed to me the good and bad sides of bosses, leadership, and opportunities. You have to fail a lot. You have to eat shit. You have to work with the bad partner and get fired. If you only have had a silver spoon experience, you can’t truly develop character. I appreciate the value in all of these rejections and failures in having to eat shit and learn.
Those experiences got me to where I’m at today. That’s helped me to stick to my path, which is teaching, coaching, and mentoring. When people come to me with these kinds of problems, I’m able to speak from experience and tell them what I learned and how I bounced back.
I also learned that it’s important to have a good creative partner because you’re with them more than your family sometimes. It’s hard to make really good work if you both aren’t aligned.
Another thing is that if the person that you're working under hasn't created the work that you want to create, don't think that they're going to help you get there because they themselves haven't.
Last thing: make sure that you’re compensated properly. I think it behooves a lot of creatives to take negotiation classes and have mentors to learn how to position themselves. There's always room for negotiations with creatives — especially younger creatives who often feel pressured. They don't feel like they have any leveraging power.
What bothers you the most about this industry?
One thing that I see a lot of is title inflation. I think the industry has been really quick to promote people that aren't ready to be at certain positions. On the flip side, there are people that might be ready for the position, but they don’t know how to get there. It’s important to have a mentor to help you make the decision.
Let's just say there’s someone that knows that they're clearly capable of being a senior copywriter, but they keep selling themselves as mid-level because they're scared. They might not have the right mentorship or support system to tell them they can make it. But then you have someone else who does know and is able to sell themselves. It’s a disadvantage — especially for a lot of creatives of color. I feel like we burn out faster because we feel like we have to prove ourselves. There aren’t that many people here that look like us.
So we have this pressure to perform and outperform, and that kind of takes a mental health toll on you. Which is another thing I learned — to protect your space, and boundaries. Work on things outside of your job that stimulate your creative juices. For me, it’s teaching, coaching, mentoring, fitness, and education.
How do you protect your mental health when things get tough as a creative?
I don't think mental health is talked about enough in the industry — especially for people of color. It’s very taboo. I know creatives that have gone through panic attacks and taken leaves for their mental health.
But unfortunately, that’s what happens to some of us — and then we leave the industry. Have you ever asked why there aren’t many people of color in leadership roles? Look around you. This system isn’t made for us. We have to break this fucking system to make the system work for us. But until then, we have to deal with it by taking baby steps.
What are some of the unorthodox methods that you've used to improve your craft as a creative?
Watching commercials and writing them out to see structures, because I wasn't taught that. Also, I bought a book called The Artist’s Way that encourages you to just free-write and get shit out of your brain. It gets your creative muscle working. During the pandemic, since we were all working from home so much, I started writing from different places to get inspired and stimulated. I wrote in the bathtub, on a beach, in a hammock, and while parked in my car.
Proactive ideas have also become my crutch. Pitching projects to non-profits and then wearing different hats (like project manager and strategy director) helps you with your creative process because you see how ideas come to life from different angles.
How is breaking into the industry now different than when you came in and what would you do differently if you had the chance?
It’s ten times harder to get in. There are no jobs. You’d never guess how many messages I get from aspiring undergrad talent and junior-level creatives that don’t know where the fuck to go, what the fuck to do, who the fuck to turn to, and how the fuck to even to get in. Everything feels so nebulous. So I, through LinkedIn, have created content that helps them find out what to do because they feel like it's not searchable/findable.
Let's say they really want work at Droga5 and they don't have a portfolio. Sometimes, they don’t know that they need one. They don’t know that they should reach out to a recruiter or account manager. And then it’s disheartening because they’re trying to break in while they go on LinkedIn and see everyone’s messages after getting laid off. They don’t know who’s hiring.
Another thing, they think that you have to apply to a job posting because that's what you’re trained to do. But they don’t know that there’s a hidden job market where you reach out to creative directors, ECDs, and recruiters who can tell you about jobs being offered. There are all of these rules of the game that people don't know.
I think I would've sat down with myself and taken inventory of my value system, the type of work that I wanted to create, the type of boss that I wanted to have, and found a mentor that would've helped me get to where I wanted to go. While I've had a lot of mentors, I did feel that a lot of times I was in a labyrinth just forging my own path forward.
Last question. There’s a lot going on in the industry right now — from AI slowly taking over, to layoffs coming for everyone’s souls. With so much happening, what are you excited about in advertising?
One thing that I’m really amped for is that there’s finally some color in this fucking industry. And the fact that you’re seeing campaigns and narratives that aren’t run of the mill. You’re seeing content now that shows a spectrum of people: Latinx, trans, Black, Asian, and more. More people want to work with Cardi B and Bad Bunny — not just Taylor Swift.
I really love that there are so many programs and resources for creatives now that didn’t exist before, and they’re only just going to continuously grow. There’s my Breaking Ad Instagram account with my creative partner Laura, and there are tons of other people in advertising opening the doors for others. I’m ready to keep watching the myriad of ways that the industry evolves, for the better.