Does your marketing elevate people?
At B2B Forum in 2025, Brian Burkhart shared his vision of emotional impact as marketing.
Discover how Brian evokes emotion in this clip, or read the transcript below.
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My core belief, what I stand for, is about elevating people.
It’s why I’m here today. It’s why I do the work that I do. And it exists on a lot of levels.
It can drive my wife absolutely crazy, because it even means things like the waiter or waitress that’s going to help us at dinner. I’m going to try to make that person’s day a little bit better!
And she’s like, “Brian, can you just shut up and eat?”
It’s real.
The examples that I’m going to show you next, of making art from a core belief of “truly expressing…” They are the work that I have done.
And I do truly understand that it may not be for everyone.
You may find this to be ridiculous, sophomoric, lampoonable… But that’s the power of core beliefs!
You heard it again this morning. You heard this notion of “separate camps.”
That’s, “we’re going to make art, for those who see the world the way we see it.” That’s what we’re trying to do!
Let me show you this, because I love this. I actually just did a redux of this. It should have arrived on Saturday. I have not yet heard, but this one’s old. This is an image from a bunch of years ago, probably at this point, 10 years ago.
A client of mine is stupid loaded. He owned eight kidney care clinics, like, dialysis clinics. Owned the buildings. I mean, he was rolling to begin with.
And then the world’s artist kidney companies, called Fresenius, they bought his eight clinics for more gazillions of dollars.
And then on top of that, they asked him to be the CEO of all the clinics. Not just his eight, but all the ones that they had in their system… after the purchase.
So he had money. Got buckets of money. And then got more money!
What do you get a guy that just becomes the CEO of the largest kidney company in the world and has all the money in the world?
Well, in my case, a box of Cheese-Its!
I said, “Congratulations on being named the Big Cheese. Go get ‘em, Tiger.”
A pal of mine, just last week, literally got the same kind of thing. On Saturday, he was named CEO of a Dallas space company. I have not yet heard from him, but I spent five bucks and a handwritten note to say, “You got this.”
The really rich guy, I mean, he got all kinds of love. You can imagine. Big network, well-known guy, lots of outpouring.
He said to me, “Brian, that box of Cheese-Its was by far—by far—the most memorable thing that I got during that transition.”
Six bucks. Including shipping.
I have a very strong GIF game. I love my GIF game.
And again, I don’t need you to agree with me, but I actually have a folder on my desktop. It’s called “GIFs.” And I’m constantly looking!
And one of my favorite things to do is rip on Green Bay Packer people. I’m all for it.
I live in the desert, and so when people make fun of a dry heat, I always have an answer. I constantly make fun of people who are stuck here in the frozen tundra.
I use things like Dancing Darth Vaders—anything I can—to elevate people. To move them. To make them feel. To put a smile on their face.
Even if it’s a little controversial…
I mean, it’s definitely one of those kinds of things where you can get someone’s emotions going, have a little fun with them, and you can use things like a little bit of a fun GIF to get there.
They’re free. They’re easy. They’re everywhere.
It fits my brand. It may not fit yours.
One of the things at my company, Square Planet, is: if you can survive a year with me, I will make you some custom Nikes.
I love the custom Nikes. You hop on, there’s a bunch of different choices, and you can only customize them so much…
And this particular one… there was a woman named Kim who worked for me. These were her dancing shoes. She clearly hung with my nephew. Same kind of rave style. Not what I think of of dance.
But these hideous, ridiculously gross looking cheddar-cheese-orange shoes that have Square Planet on the back?
This was a big deal!
If you were a member of the team, the day you got your shoes was a big day!
You were looking forward to it.
You wanted to wear those shoes.
You felt elevated the minute that I made you a pair of Nikes.
I still don’t know why she wore these things. They’re so hideous!
This is Carl Richards. Some of you might know … Anyone know who Carl Richards is?
He was a New York Times cartoonist for a long time.
But his background is actually finance. He was a financial advisor first, had a little bit of gift of art. And the next thing you know, he’s getting published weekly in the New York Times.
And I really wanted him on my podcast. He was a guy that I was really intrigued by. And he does these little kind of simple drawings and has really smart little quips that go with it. And I thought, “this is my kind of guy.”
I couldn’t find a way to connect to him though.
I mean, I had tried the basics like LinkedIn… And then I was actually able to dig up an email that I thought was real…
And so I did this:
I took a selfie with a little drawing and it was, “Carl, let’s talk.”
And you could see the very huge difference between his hair and my hair.
And I know this is super hard to see, but his response was pretty great:
“Brian, thanks for the note. Love the sketch.”
He gave me his cell phone number!
I went from stranger to mobile in one email…
Because I didn’t worry about being perfect.
In fact, I wanted to create art.
I was able to move him with that ridiculous sketch.
That’s what this is about, friends.
It would have been really easy to stop and go, “This is a New York Times author. I have to be super smart about this. I got to be really deliberate.”
Or? Or…
I can choose to do what Nikita said and not worry about being perfect… and just make art instead.
One of the favorite things that my little firm has ever pumped out in my mind is this. You are welcome to try to read this.
I will tell you that it is actual, legit, real words that are associated with apps, as in phone apps.
Our client was a firm out in the Bay Area called Y Media Labs.
It was two guys who were really the first to the party. They were new to the United States. They had essentially no social life. It was 2008 and they were just banging out code.
And so on Saturday nights, they would hop online and write code, which then became an app for a Montessori school for one of their kids, [to schedule] when pickup and stuff was, [in the] Bay Area.
Suddenly they get an email from a guy named Steve Jobs. Maybe you’ve heard of him?
And Steve said, “boys, you are onto something great! Keep going. It’s bigger than you know. This is going to be a thing.”
Well, fast-forward to today: in the hundreds of millions of dollars that they’ve created and had dumped on them from private equity and you name it. Y Media Labs has built some of the biggest apps on the planet!
But there was a time when lots of people were like, “I have no idea how to do an app. How does this work? What does it take?’
And they hired us to help tell that story.
This card, again, legit app language, but the core belief of Y Media was that it should be simple: that all the tech, all the hard stuff should be hidden from view.
How did we express that?
By creating art.
Simply amazing… should be… amazingly simple.
It was a simple little printed card overlay and you could just about imagine the response from prospects.
If you can’t?
They loved it.
Published March 20, 2026
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