No people leader combines brand creative and business strategy like Brian. He holds an MBA from Brown University, a LEAD from Stanford's Graduate School of Business and a Fine Arts degree from CalArts.
He's a creative leader who knows the best work comes from the best teams. So Brian focuses on recruiting and fostering incredible talent with his positive mentoring style. This is the philosophy that built Something Massive agency's in-house studio and Best Buy in-house agency. He has a unique background in creative, client and consumer business, always focusing on lifting the work of those around him. It's a teamwork mentality that started in avant garde theatre under Richard Foreman and Ray Bradbury. As a young artist he held a stint with Disney Imagineering and performed with the legendary Upright Citizen's Brigade, Groundlings and Michael Kahn's Shakespeare Theater before being sidelined with a terminal diagnosis.
He beat that diagnosis. And that's what led him into the career of corporate creative that's seen the success of brands like Samsung, Apple, Union Pacific, Disney. Fox Studios, Regal Cinemas, Plum Organics, ConAgra Foods, Best Buy and more. He's now committed to elevating leadership, having launched two start-up faith brands, and currently consults in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife and two young children.
If you need to elevate your creative team, he's the leader to call.
ABOUT ME
BRIAN SANTA MARIA
CASE STUDIES
THE ONION:
KNOW WHAT YOU'RE ABOUT
The Onion had became the most widely read satire on the planet. A huge success. But it had reached a huge plateau. Over 70 million unique site hits per month and... stable. To grow, The Onion needed to apply to their brand the same narrative principles they apply to story-writing.
BEST BUY:
IDENTIFY YOUR VALUE
You can't convert without communicating value. And you can't communicate value if you haven't identified it.
Once you know what you're about, you can examine what makes that different and valuable.
Best Buy, like the rest of retail, was getting beaten up by Amazon and out-priced by Walmart and Target. Customers didn't see our value because we had lost track of it too.
IDENTITY:
PASSION OVER POPULARITY
Consumers have more choices than ever. It's not enough to be likable. You have to impassion them. That means that identifying who you are and what your value is are the first steps. The next one is channeling that into your customers'
highest priority beliefs.
When those beliefs are your beliefs, you have an identity brand.
In building a Christian brand, my customer research started with who I wasn't going to listen to. And if you answered False on question one, your opinion doesn't matter. With that information we can see that "kind and conscientious," while perceptively popular, is actually a low passion driver in our controlled group.
Where is a passion differentiator? "A Good American."
