What's It Like To Work At The Daily Wire?

* Part of series featuring Daily Wire employees who share what it’s like to work for one of the most meteoric news and entertainment content companies in America. This week, Brett Craig, former CCO of Deutsch/LA and named an Adweek Top 50 mover and shaker. Currently, he serves as EVP of Creative, at The Daily Wire.?

People often ask me what it’s like to work at the Daily Wire.?

My short answer? Intense. Thrilling. Maddening. Competitive. Fast paced in the extreme. And, yes, highly entrepreneurial.?

The company does not worship at the alter of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. We don’t navel gaze and obsess about feelings and grievance. We don’t have hand-wringing conversations about “emotional safety”. These, of course, are all features of modern corporate life.

However, we do push ourselves to make the impossible happen - every single day. In fact, Co-CEO, Jeremy Boreing, says this in employee orientation meetings, “Working here is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”

I’ve found that to be true. Yet there’s one more thing I’ve found is true about working at The Daily Wire compared to corporate America: it’s liberating.?

In my last role, I was the Chief Creative Officer at the biggest ad agency on the West Coast, at the time, Deutsch, Los Angeles. I oversaw about 60 creatives. I created advertising for clients such as Taco Bell and Dr Pepper.?Over my 20+ years in advertising, working on everything, from Call of Duty to Pepsi, if there’s one thing I would say that characterizes 99% of corporations, it’s timidity and fear. Most companies are slow-turning cruise liners; they're typically methodical, interested in incremental change and keenly focused on?not?making mistakes.?

I don’t say that merely as a criticism, per se. I say it as an observation of reality. Typical C-suite executives hate risk, loathe controversy, and most are resistant to take truly big swings. There are exceptions, of course, and they are so rare that we all know the names and their brands (Branson/Virgin, Musk/Tesla, Jobs/Apple).?

However, at Daily Wire, taking big, bold swings is what the brand exists to do. It’s a company that runs towards the provocative, the challenging, the controversial, not away.?And, well, that’s just so incredibly disorienting if you come from corporate America, like I do.?

For instance, when I was tasked with building out Daily Wire’s internal brand creative team, I knew it would be challenging. Why??Because whatever wiring in the brain that makes people artful, also seems to make them highly liberal. And so, when you work for an inherently conservative company, getting creative advertising people to work there isn’t exactly easy. Of course, there are amazing creative people and artists willing to work here. But how do you reach them and let them know they could do great work at the Daily Wire?

Industry publications like Adweek and Adage would be of no help, of course, as they won’t even accept ads from The Daily Wire since they’re 100% captured ideologically-speaking.

So, I had an idea: advertise to them in a way that very much speaks to the pain points so common in corporate America today, like mandated vaccinations and, especially, wokeness which has destroyed the ad industry. Following my hunch, I wrote a series of ads - to be dropped on my own LinkedIn page - to speak right to creatives in the advertising industry and Corporate America, dealing with these pain points (below).?

Now, it’s one thing to have an idea like this, it’s another to be allowed to actually execute it. Not one of these ads would have gotten out the door of 99.9% of companies in America in today's climate. They’re just way too provocative and triggering.?

Yet Daily Wire Co-CEOs, Caleb Robinson and Jeremy Boreing, took one look at them and simply said, “Go for it”.?

To which I responded, still accustomed to the risk-averse mentality of Corporate America, “Should I turn off the comments on LinkedIn? Because what if people get upset and post nasty things?”?

“Why turn them off? Let them comment”, Jeremy Boreing matter-of-factly replied and the then added, “The only real question is, are you up for doing it?”.

"Yes", I said.

Was I scared? Absolutely. After all, I knew how woke Madison Avenue would react. Yet, I left the meeting pleasantly gobsmacked by our exchange. Did that really just happen? Did they just say, essentially, to embrace controversy and risk? And did I just show a highly provocative campaign and get a green light in 30 seconds from the DW C-suite??

How positively insane - and totally liberating.?

The campaign, in the end, delivered. The nasty comments directed at me most assuredly came, too. But as we used to say in the biz, if an ad doesn't provoke a response, it's a waste of money. One post, in fact, received 47,000+ views. But most importantly, the effort yielded us 5 top-notch creative talents.?

This all happened in a period of about a week - from concept, to execution, to ROI.?

For my part, the whole experience was like being jumped into a gang - and I mean that in the best sense. On LinkedIn, I took withering incoming verbal fire from the advertising world.?Yet, guess what? The Daily Wire’s leaders, the C-suite, all lent their encouragement and support, which was an amazing feeling. They didn’t back away from the controversy, like most corporate suits would, they went towards it. They didn’t distance themselves from me, but instead, had my back.?

Would your corporation and its leaders do that?

And all of this lead to another idea: that the Daily Wire use an image of a lion on our "Careers" page with the headline, “Sheep Need Not Apply”. It's a call to all applicants and current employees to rise to the challenge. It’s also a filter of sorts for people seeking employment at The Daily Wire.?

In the end, I’ve come to realize that the type of people that thrive at The Daily Wire are those that are willing to run towards impossible challenges. Whether it be Ben Shapiro fearlessly speaking the truth to millions each day, Matt Walsh taking on radical gender ideology, Candace Owens confronting BLM, Michael Knowles calling out the most powerful doctor in America or Jeremy Boreing starting a razor company as a rebuke to woke corporations that hate you. (Not to mention any of the dozens of lesser known, but just as courageous and tough, reporters and employees of The Daily Wire - folks who’ve all signed up to go to Mars, knowing they’re putting a lot on the line to do so.)?

So, what’s it really like to work at the Daily Wire? It’s like joining a pride of lions. A pride that runs towards challenges, not away. One that fights together, knowing we have a mission that is so much bigger and important than any one of us.?

That get your blood pumping? Then maybe, just maybe, The Daily Wire is the place for you.?