Creative Q&A: Kent Brockwell, Ad Person of the Year

Kent Brockwell with the Ad Person of the Year award he received at this year’s Richmond Show. (Jonathan Spiers photo)

When Kent Brockwell learned he’d been chosen by the Richmond Ad Club as this year’s Ad Person of the Year, the then-communications director at Madison+Main said he was as surprised as anyone else.

Seven years into what had been the longest professional gig of his career, the 44-year-old found out about award during a routine staff meeting, when agency founder Dave Saunders mentioned the notice the agency received.

“I had not seen the email yet,” Brockwell said and laughed.

Brockwell was recognized at the club’s Richmond Show for his contributions in the industry as well as the community, including his volunteer work for Housing Families First, an area nonprofit, and HARP RVA, an addiction-recovery program at the Chesterfield County Jail.

Now a creative director at political ad shop Poolhouse, Brockwell is getting back to the writing that he said he fell in love with while studying news editing at VCU, and in journalism stints that led to copywriting for companies such as Circuit City and Capital One and communications and marketing for Madison+Main.

BizSense sat down with Brockwell to discuss his award, his recent job change and his approach to the creative process. The following is an edited transcript:

Richmond BizSense: Congrats on your award. How did you find out you’d been named Ad Person of the Year?

Kent Brockwell: Dave brought it up in a meeting, and I thought he was joking. Afterwards, I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He goes, ‘Have you not checked your email?’ I checked my email and saw the announcement. It was one of those moments like, ‘Me? Really?’

Brockwell at the awards show in April. (Alex Oswald Photography)

I’m not a huge fan of the spotlight, so knowing that your name’s in this thing and you get to go to the show and make a speech is humbling, but it’s a great honor as well.

RBS: Do you know who originally nominated you?

KB: I’m pretty sure it was Erin Rebmann. She’s at Brandito now. We worked together for a long time at Madison+Main. She nominated me because of the work I’d done with the intern program and team building.

I would bring on people who just needed something different. I had a captain in the Army who was trying to go into a marketing program for the Army, and he just needed a little more background and information on how marketing works and how advertising and branding, especially when it comes to recruitment, works.

That was a great experience. He was very grateful for it, and I was grateful to just have that one-on-one mentorship opportunity with someone who needed it for career development.

RBS: Why were internships a priority for you?

KB: That was a big part of my speech for the award. I challenged the audience for two things: if they don’t have an internship program, they need to start one; if they do have an internship program, they need to take it seriously, for the sake of the kids. … I think that’s super important to give them a great welcome mat into the industry to set them up for success, because we’re going to be working with all of them eventually.

Brockwell delivering his speech at the awards show. (Alex Oswald Photography)

The other thing I challenged the audience for was, outside of a lot of very eager, young minds looking for experience, there are a lot of nonprofits, especially here in Richmond, that need creative help and they can’t afford it. … I think every agency, no matter how big or small, can offer up a little something to help those who need to get their message out the most who can afford it the least.

RBS: You studied journalism at VCU and worked at newspapers in Florida and your hometown of Emporia. How did that translate into copywriting and marketing?

KB: I found my calling in the newspaper. It was so redeeming to have a job with a skill that told a story. I think that’s what really called to me about the journalism profession but the advertising and marketing profession as well: that story-telling ability.

Journalism, you’re sticking with trying to tell the true story. Advertising, I’m still telling a true story – for a client. It’s just a different perspective. But telling that story and being able to influence just that one viewer watching it at that time in life is super interesting to me.

RBS: How did your new gig with Poolhouse come about?

KB: I’ve been a fanboy of Poolhouse since they started. There’s something about the angles and the tone and the look of the Poolhouse work that intrigued me. It was different, it was distinct, and it was impactful. I approached them.

Dave and Molly (Whitfield, Madison+Main’s agency president and 2020 Ad Person of the Year) have built that place into a great agency that really supports its people. I really can’t say enough good things about them or the folks that work there. But I was wearing a lot of hats. I wasn’t necessarily displeased with the hats I was wearing, but I was looking forward to getting back to the basics.

Poolhouse offered a new opportunity to focus on the two things I love the most: getting back to the writing process, the creative process, that conceptual idealization; and the opportunity to continue building a team.

RBS: Is it a change working for an agency that primarily makes ads for political candidates?

KB: This isn’t my first rodeo with political (advertising). I’ve worked with Rob Wittman’s campaign before on campaign videos; I’ve worked with two different attorney generals for their political advocacy work, both (Mark) Herring and (Jason) Miyares. It’s familiar, comfortable water to be in.

RBS: Your new gig is creative director. How do you approach the creative process?

KB: This is probably terrible to say, and no client ever wants to hear this, but the client wants to say something, and that’s fine; the audience needs to hear something, and that’s different. Meshing what the client wants to say and what the audience actually needs to hear to take action, finding that middle ground is very important for me.

For me, I always go back to empathy. Maybe it’s my journalistic background and interviewing and listening to all the stories I’ve heard over the years, but I always get back to who in this demographic needs to hear this the most, and then – it sounds cliché, but – putting yourself in those shoes.

RBS: What work have you been involved in that you’re most proud of?

KB: The Respect Richmond campaign for Attorney General Herring. Anti-gang and -gun violence campaign. It was some of the hardest creative I’ve ever written, as far as just hard-core tone. It was so impactful; the reason why is because we talked to the vice cops in Richmond, the chief of police, social workers, community and faith leaders. We listened to that pulse of the street and the people who are involved.

It was such pervasive messaging, and the channels we went after were so surround-sound. … And the messaging was all empathetic. How do you talk to a 13-year-old? They’re not going to listen to an adult, so you talk to them on their terms. You talk to them on something that hits them in the heartstring: “Take a breath, it might be your last,” or, “Are you next? Is your cousin next? Is your grandma next?” Making it personal.

RBS: What sources of inspiration do you go to stay creative and keep your ideas fresh? You mentioned you’ve done some stand-up comedy?

KB: For me (stand-up comedy is) a great creative outlet, because you get to say the things that you’d never get to say in front of a client. The things you can’t say in front of really anybody. But it gives you an opportunity to say it the way you feel – that truly unfiltered, raw take on life.

One of the things I do is I go to a restaurant or a bar and I put my headphones in but I don’t turn them on, and I just listen to what people are saying and listen to their conversations. Whether it’s about a relationship issue or a work issue or this or that, you can feel the temperature of what people are thinking and wanting and needing. I get a lot of inspiration from that.

I probably just gave up my tell. People are going to sit beside me now and they’re like, “Oh, you listen to me, spy!”