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Articles by Katy Hornaday
This is the worst advice we give new CEOs
“Congratulations and condolences.” This is a real message a peer sent when I became CEO of BarkleyOKRP in May 2025. And he wasn’t alone in his sentiment. It seems many regarded this career-defining achievement as the corporate equivalent of buying a boat: Enjoy that first day; the rest will be rough. My future was to be filled with bigger decisions, harder calls, and problems aplenty. And now I was a team of one. My office was an island, miles from help. As they say, it’s lonely at the top.
What's on Paul Corrigan's Desk at Barkley
At Barkley, we like to say Capital D (Design) solves problems, and little d (design) adds beauty. I don't know where my desk lands on that spectrum. But I'd like to think it's some odd combination of both. Here are a few of my favorites. Enjoy the tour. Bigfoot doodles There's a nagging little story in my head about a modern-day Sasquatch who finds himself in the unlikely role of humanity's last big chance—alongside an even more unlikely accomplice.
Fred Savage Has No Idea Why He's in the Trailer for Once Upon a Deadpool
"Fox has been asking for a PG-13 basically since the start in 2006," Reynolds told Deadline earlier this month. "I've said no since 2006. Now, this one time, I said yes on two conditions. First, a portion of the proceeds had to go to charity. Second, I wanted to kidnap Fred Savage." Indeed, of every ticket sold, $1 will go to the "Fuck Cancer" campaign, which will be renamed "Fudge Cancer" for this project, in keeping with its PG-13 nature.
How to Really Take Risks in Advertising
If we want our people to jump off a plane, we need to be their parachute. We constantly hear in our industry about the importance of taking risks. So much so that it's becoming just another advertising trope among so many others that we're all sick of hearing about, from online pundits to (many) ad event pulpits. Every day I read somewhere about the importance of being brave and following our gut, and I am not here to deny that.
Twitter's Charming Christmas Ad Stars the Real @JohnLewis (No, Not the British Retailer)
Every year around this time, Virginia computer science teacher John Lewis gets inundated on Twitter with messages about his wonderful new Christmas commercial—you know, the one he had nothing to do with making. That's because he shares a name with the British retailer John Lewis, whose holiday adverts have long set the bar for sweet storytelling, helping to create something like a Super Bowl of competitive Christmas advertising in the U.K. each year. Except it's John Lewis the Virginian,...
For Halloween, Here's How to Bring a Big Idea Back From the Dead
Dan agreed, and to his credit became the campaign's champion. He walked into my office and asked, "Would the agency put resources behind resurrecting this work?" I told him I knew we would, but with the midterm elections just a few months away, we gotta move fast. Senior leadership greenlighted it with one condition: keep the work nonpartisan.
7 Ways Agencies Can Entice Modern Parents to Work With Them
The best advice someone gave me as a newly minted executive creative director was this: Find your heroes in the industry. So I went hunting for the best among us. I wanted to find those who I could look up to for their work, of course. But I also really wanted role models who were juggling an awe-inspiring career alongside motherhood. However, my search showed me a new problem. While we all actively lament the shortage of women in leadership, even fewer of these leaders are moms.
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