The Simplicity of Creative

Let's be honest, most of us in this room are probably guilty of overthinking a creative. You know, we're throwing 12 creatives, six CTAs, three color palettes, and a multiple paragraphs of brand story and trying to force it into one ad and then wondering why, you know, it just isn't right. Our next speaker built a brand by doing the exact opposite. He's a co-founder of Dad Gang, a movement turned brand that proves your creative doesn't need to be complex to be powerful.

Through simple storytelling, authenticity, and design that actually connects, Bart turned a clear message into a community and a business that resonates worldwide. Today he's here to remind us that sometimes less is more and it works. So take a breath, clear your mental canvas and help me welcome to Creative Constanke. What's up everybody?

This is Bart from Dad Gang. I'm one of the co-founders of the brand and I'm super excited to be here with you today at Creative Con. Um, and I'm here to talk about the simplicity of creative. Um, just a little quick background on on myself.

I've worked in uh DTOC marketing, social media, digital media uh for the past 15 years or so. And I used to be the VP of marketing, director of marketing, um, head of marketing for for various companies. And then I was the head of growth at an agency in LA for for over 30 brands in two years. So really got to see the lay of the land around uh lots of different products from apparel to supplements from um to skin care and beauty.

Um but I've always kind of have always found my way back to apparel. Um and so it makes sense why why I'm now in headwear. Uh but yeah, one of the co-founders of of Dad Gang Co. We started um just a little over three years ago with a hundred hats in in my garage with my pregnant wife and um we all had full-time jobs, the three of us as as co-founders.

And um just wanted to change the way fatherhood was looked at on social media. We got a little tired and annoyed of seeing just like mowing the lawn, dad bod kind of funny comedy stuff about dads. And as we became fathers and uh you know took on this new role, we realized, hey, you know, being a dad isn't just funny. It's a lot more than that.

It's emotional. It's stressful. It's um you know, it's a lot to take on and take on this new identity. And so we started Dad Gang.

We wanted to make an incredible hat, high quality A-frame snapback. Um, that isn't corny and doesn't say number one dad on it or world's best dad or, you know, dad bought on it. Um, something that that you can wear on a daily basis and something that can represent fatherhood for you and and represent the community of dads um that that love the brand. And so we started the brand um very simply just by making those 100 hats and making very simple content about it daily.

I believe our first post was just a hat in my hand um shot in portrait mode on an iPhone and with a caption around like here's why we're starting this brand. And we got lucky in a sense where in the beginning a lot of friends and family supported the brand. Um, we made those 100 hats and the 100 hats sold out in less than 36 hours, which was awesome. Uh, very appreciative for that first boost of support.

But at the same time, we didn't think, you know, here's here's a big business play for us. It was like, okay, 100 sold, this isn't life-changing. Let's just keep making them and see what happens. We still kind of carry that mantra to this day.

Let's make something and see what happens. um we don't like to put a ton of stress on the business or a ton of pressure on the business um if it's not necessary. We were fortunate and lucky enough to to have um jobs and and build something at the same time. So, we just kept going, kept making hats and kept posting on Instagram and and as organic as possible, you know, um portrait mode photos, some videos of a hat moving around in your hand and just writing captions that had to do with being a father, being a new father, how to take on the role, what what struggles you deal with, what triumphs you celebrate, and all these other things.

So, um, for us it's it's always been about the simplistic approach to everything we do and and especially creative. So, any creative you've ever seen from Dad Gang is all created by me. Um, 95% of of all things that we've put out have been shot on an iPhone. And then I am obsessed with Canva and Cap Cut.

Um, I think if you can learn those two tools, which are very easy to learn, they have their own built-in guides on how to use them. Um, honestly, if you took like 3 days, 2 hours a day to learn these platforms and um, use them to your advantage, you'd be in a much better place than somebody that has no idea what to do with them and somebody that that spends, you know, hours in Premiere editing the most perfect video. Um, so I want to talk about that today. I want to talk about removing the complexity out of creative and the pressure behind it.

I was just at a founders forum thing in New York and that was one of the questions I got asked pretty often is, you know, where do you put creative as a priority? I I I personally put it as number one when it comes to our brand because one, I hold myself to a standard of posting every single day. If I miss a post, I get a little anxious, but posting every single day and that does not mean posting the perfect post. Literally, I'm I'm in our one of our creative studios right now that we rent for $250 a month and hop into um whenever we want to shoot.

But um I think it's more about shooting anything and posting anything than posting the perfect thing. And I'll get into that a little bit. Also, our first few posts, we only had three samples. We only had one trucker hat to post.

And what did I do? I took that one trucker and exhausted all creative potential. I would um I would shoot a video of the hat in frame and then me playing with my kids in the background. I would hang it on a string and have it spinning from a from a pole in my backyard.

I would put it on top of uh a car and shoot it that way on a fence post in the grass and good lighting. And just that simple approach of here's my product. The customer, we want them to wants that product. So I need to shoot it in different formats but not not in a complex way.

So portrait mode, cinematic mode, regular photo, regular video. Um, and then take those take those assets and put them into a Canva or a cap cut. the the beauty with with Cap Cut these days is that with these AI enhancements they've they've put into the platform is I can be here today in this little studio um shoot five different hats in five different angles, shoot them all on my phone as a video and then tap AI create um on on Cap Cut and it'll give me 14 to 20 different videos made instantly that I can use on my page that day. I think the the thing that stops a lot of creators and a lot of brands from making content is the overthought of what the final product will look like as if everybody's anticipating your post.

At the end of the day, we have to understand that absolutely nobody cares. And that does sound pretty harsh. You care. It's your brand.

It's your livelihood. It's your opportunity. and maybe your partners' care and the people that are that are working with with you on it, but outside of that, nobody cares. Um, and it's a hard pill to swallow, but you need to approach your audience and your consumers that way when it comes to regular daily organic content at least.

I understand there's a bit more strategy in in paid advertising content that makes all the sense in the world. But when it comes to organic, just post um if you look at it was a funny trend or or observation recently, but Justin Bieber for instance posts every day on his page nonstop and then people are kind of wondering like what's going on? Why is he posting so much all of a sudden? Is he going crazy?

What's wrong with him? And then he drops two albums back to back and they do amazing. And he still continues this kind of presence on Instagram, but it's not perfect. It's not the most, you know, photoshopped, super well-curated post of him.

It'll be like a blurry picture of him golfing or a blurry picture of him in in a studio or just laughing or it it's so much less about posting the perfect thing. And especially today, I think we're a lot more fortunate than our parents were and then don't even, you know, get started on on our grandparents. But we have these devices in our hands and we have the ability to make a product that we think people might want and then why would we hold back on putting that out into the world? Um I've shot I don't know I spent 10 minutes today maybe doing some video and photo on my phone of some hats that we currently have and later I'll throw them in cap cut and then later that'll be a post on our Instagram.

That's the only thought that goes into it. And don't linger on your posts either. Um, when you post something, I call it posting and ghosting. Post it and let it live.

Move on to the next thing you're working on. We tend to overwor the things that we post on our page. Think about it. The likes, the comments, the re-shares, now story posts and shares does not matter.

Just keep going. And then when it comes to the other side of things, when it comes to ads, I'm still within the same approach for us. I understand it's simple. We make hats for dads.

Our copy is very simple, too. The best hat for dad. Dad love dads love these hats. Um, you'll want to collect these.

Dads, over 700,000 dads have purchased these hats. The copy behind that is fairly simple. And the photography and video behind that is also fairly simple because if you look at our website, 3 years into this thing, we are still on the first free theme that Shopify offers you. Um, some people would call me crazy for that, but I believe being a a younger dad and kind of in our demo at the moment and knowing the chaotic life that that new dads live, I don't think they necessarily need to land on a super complicated landing page that explains our hats and the stitching and the uh makeup of it and the stories.

No, they saw a hat they want says dad gang on it. It's only 35 bucks. They want to land on the website and that's it. Um, and they want to get the product and we make that process super simple from content to website to check out to thank you email.

Um, so I I I believe that I kind of got this approach from when I was at the on the agency side of things. I I worked on 30 different brands in in 2 years, which was insane. But at the same time, I'm I'm grateful for that experience because I got to learn what not to do and what to not stress about. Like I mentioned before, um we'd be in these meetings about creative and um the debating over what creative should go up or the debating over what um color should have or fonts or dimensions and all these things.

It's just kind of like it drains the joy from building a brand because you're just sitting there dissecting a post for the day or an ad for the day and it drains the opportunity. I think if you keep posting at a high volume and taking shots on goal, um you have a much a much better opportunity for for success than than if you sit there and overthink every single post. Um, and nowadays too with our with our ads approach, I'm still, you know, some of the photos I've taken here at the studio today, I'll take those if they have a clean nice clean background on them, I'll throw some copy over it, you know, um, number one hat for dads, the best hats for dads, um, trusted by over 700,000 dads, and then add some maybe emotional quotes around fatherhood and and the meaning behind it, those kind of things. it's still not going in and overstressing about every single little piece of content.

Um, and and I do say that while understanding that not everybody has a a simple apparel brand. Um, I have worked for numerous supplement brands that do need a ton of education upfront, but still I believe that the simplicity should be there. Um, say you have a supplement that helps with gut health. What is the simple message from that product, right?

The simple message is we make this amazing product that will help you have a healthier gut. Okay? What goes with that? Food and health and personal well-being and the way the supplement looks and the way you consume it.

Why don't you make simple videos around explaining that stuff instead of you know going to a studio and um you know being super complicated with how the supplement pours out and spins in the water and all these things. I think people want you to get straight to the point these days and people can also read through the sale super salesy tactics and all these things that that brands are doing where I think simplicity does sell and simplicity does generate trust because you're not overproducing to drive a conversion. Um so so I do understand some products do need more education on the front end. A supplement probably does need a landing page, but don't remove that simplicity from it just because um just because you you think or you saw some supplement that's funded a billion dollars and has all the creative resources.

I think starting small, starting organic, starting simple is uh is the way to do it. And and don't remove the joy from from creating. I think if you make some videos, hop into Cap Cut, hop into Canva, you'll find that the the creation of assets is a lot simpler than than we all think. I start my days by hopping on the laptop um you know, after getting the the kids to school and all that.

And I immediately open Canva just to see um if if I've got some sort of creative inspiration that day. And if I don't, then I click on the templates tab and it's just filled with different templates. And there's so many other uh platforms out there that that help you do similar things. So yeah, it it's hard for me to explain because I do keep it so extremely simple, but try to remove the stress from creative.

Um, even not to get like too cheesy with it, but the first thing kids do once they once they're able to is draw and color and paint and glue and creative is like the first fun human outlet um that that we kind of experience um even at a young age. So don't take the joy out of it by by overemphasizing perfection. I think I think we are at a point where where it's so simple um and it's easy to create and um just back to to video really quickly too. You know, as you build a brand um on accident, you're going to with your phone create an an overflow of of content and never delete that stuff.

I think um people want to follow a story. People want to be able to um jump in and and experience what you've experienced building your brand. And especially with Cap Cut, you can hop into your camera roll, upload, you know, the past 3 years of videos and hit create AI video and it'll make you a storyline of of what you've built. And totally understanding that that AI is kind of taking over and everybody's super excited about it.

But I I still believe we're still in this like phase one and a half of of AI and and all the things that that um it it'll help us with like Sora 2 coming out and and creating these hyperrealistic videos that it's hard to tell now what what is real and what isn't. But move move away from the fear of that and and see how you can use it for your brand. Um we haven't done much on it. I've actually just done it for some PDP stuff.

So, we have a a hat that has uh fire flames on the on the brim, and I've been able to take that and um you know, type into V3, hey, why don't you make the flames on the hat actually light on fire and put some fire around the hat and then bring it back down to original form? That stuff's been really fun. But other than that, I still appreciate the reality of a of a real video on your iPhone, real photo taken. Um, and even today I was reading about how organic uh organicesque posts are starting to really break through as an ad strategy for a lot of people.

Um, because if you just think about it, we most consumers removed from marketing, removed from brand ownership, don't hop onto their social media platforms to see more ads. Um, they want to see the organic stuff. They want to see the real stuff. So, keep making that.

Don't make, you know, don't make crappy UGC. I think I think that's kind of like uh been done. But make content that you would normally post and and see how that does cuz that that again is moving back to to simpler times and removing the stress of perfection around things. Um few other things you know I use I use uh various creative tools but mainly Canva for um for making emails.

Uh, every single email you've ever seen from Dad Gang has been designed by me. Same thing. Tons of templates, tons of potential out there on on how to create um, emails, text messages. We have an app now that I just create everything within there.

But it I I don't think there's a lack of of time or effort. It's just just learn these tools that have been made so simple for for you to create something new and cool on a daily basis and try to hold yourself to that standard of I you know I'm not sure where your where your brand lives at the moment but ours is uh dominantly Instagram um and some some love on Tik Tok but it's still um Instagram's kind of our main channel and I've just held myself to posting every single day no matter what happens throughout that day. Um, just post find find that 10 minutes to get a post up. You know, tag your product, write a caption and and put up something you shot.

But, um, it's so important because one, the algorithm rewards it, but two, it keeps you practicing. Um, and I don't don't think people realize that it's not just about posting every day and and taking shots on goal for a sale. It keeps you practicing in a repetition where, you know, if you suck at shooting a basketball, but you go shoot a hundred shots every single day, you're probably going to get better at shooting a basketball, you know, after a month or two. So, same thing, get your reps in with posting.

I think it helps. And especially if you if you are in the beginning or in the middle of a of a small brand, the opportunities are are infinite because once again, nobody cares and you're in the beginning of your build. So try things. Um if you post an AI generated video today and it it doesn't do well, try a real, you know, cinematic mode video tomorrow or try something wacky.

Try speaking into the camera. Try throwing your product in the air and shooting it slow-mo. Um, I I did a thing recently where I put on some Meta glasses and walked around New York and gave away hats to dads on the street. 30 minutes of of walking around and giving out hats.

Um, chopped it up and cap cut spliced it into different sections and is one of our best performing, most kind of wellreceived videos we've ever made. But the effort around it was fairly low and but the impact of it was high just because we got good reactions. Dads were happy to get the hats and it felt awesome to just kind of interact with dads and give away our product. So once again as always in in this whole talk I really want to emphasize the simplicity because the other aspects of business like operations and sales and retail and contracts and terms and all these things those get complicated and stressful and it's hard to keep that simple although I think you should um as much as possible.

So, keep the fun thing, the creative thing, the marketing, the branding. Keep that simple for yourself because stresses will come from out of nowhere. Um, yeah, I I wish I had more on this, but that is as simple as as I keep things here. Um, and as a perfect example, um, we have a hack coming out and some beanies in a couple days, and I'm just here shooting them on my iPhone.

I'm going to get a ton of clips. I'm going to throw them straight into Cap Cut. And then from there, I'm going to make videos for that launch. I'm going to have a batch of photos, for the email, for the app, for the website.

And that's the effort. Um, I'm not hiring a crew to to do a massive shoot around it. Um, and nothing against hiring uh creatives or anything, but it's just not needed for us. Uh maybe we'll get to a point where eventually it is, but now we're over 3 years in, over 700,000 hats sold, and we're still doing it this way because it feels right.

And um and we we still have time for it because of how simple we make things. So, thank you everybody uh for listening to me yap about creative um for this long. And I hope you got some value out of this. Um my my handle on on Instagram where I yap some more is just the chef.

Um, t h e s zf. And then dad gang is just dad gang.com. If you'd like a hat, be awesome. Um, no pressure.

Just check out the community and and just look at us for for the type of creative we make cuz we we mix things up a lot and it's fun to just try things. But thank you once again. Super appreciative. It's awesome to be recognized for for what we've built and and we feel very blessed um to be able to speak to you about it.

So, thank you once again and have a great rest of your day.