Telling the Whole Story with Bernice Chao on Culture and Creativity

What does it mean to build a creative career by being unapologetically you, while making space for others to do the same? Bernice Chao, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Asians in Advertising, joins Michele Ching for a conversation about authenticity, representation, and the power of culturally grounded storytelling.

From leading campaigns for brands like Google, Amazon, and Netflix to mentoring the next generation at LMU, Bernice shares how personal identity and professional excellence don’t just coexist—they fuel each other. She opens up about the moments that shaped her, the impact of her nonprofit work, and the creative frameworks that help brands connect more meaningfully.

Inside:

• The mission behind Asians in Advertising—and how it’s reshaping the industry
• How Bernice turned authenticity into her creative superpower
• Why culturally specific details matter for marketers trying to build real connection
• A strategic approach that starts with “why” and ends in emotional resonance
• What visibility really means—and why brands can’t afford to stay surface-level

If you care about purpose-driven work, inclusive creativity, and brand storytelling that actually resonates, this one’s for you.

TRANSCRIPT

Michele Ching
Welcome to a brand new episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem podcast. Today we've got something truly special for you. We're interviewing Bernice Chao, who is an award winning creative leader and chief creative officer known for her transformative work with some of the world's most prominent brands. As one of the few Asian-American female creative executives in the industry, she is dedicated to amplifying voices within the AANHPI community.

Bernice is a founder of Asians in Advertising, a global nonprofit that uplifts the next generation through its influential podcasts, events, and mentorship and scholarship programs. Bernice is also the coauthor of the award winning bestseller, The Visibility Mindset, and a sought after speaker who is presented on over 100 stages, including South by Southwest, World Bank, Harvard, and Space-X. You're really an underachiever.

Her thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc. and Fast Company. Beyond her industry impact, Bernice teaches at Loyola Marymount University, where she helped create a program dedicated to empowering emerging voices in the creative fields. Her achievements have been widely recognized, including induction into the AAF Hall of Achievement, being named She Runs It Mother of the Year and selection for the Cannes Lions “See it, Be It” program.

Bernice continues to shape and inspire the creative and AANHPI communities through her work, dedication and advocacy. Bernice, welcome to Sightly's podcast.

Bernice Chao
Thanks, Michele. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here today.

Michele Ching
I'm so honored to get to interview you. Off screen, Bernice and I have been friends for some time now. We got to meet through a women's executive network organization and also she's been leading the TEDx, Culver City chapter for a very long time, where I was lucky enough to volunteer with her. And so now, getting to feature your work in this way is just another privilege. And for those of us who don't know as much about you, maybe you could just start off by telling us a little bit about your origin story as an advertising executive.

Bernice Chao
Happy to. And again, it is so wonderful to have this conversation with you, Michele. You have been such an inspiration to me as a mother, as a friend. It's always been lovely to catch up with you.

I would say whenever I start my executive journey conversation of where I started from, I always call back to that one moment, a time where my mother put up a drawing that I made when I was five on the wall of her bedroom.

And I think, you know, to that moment I was like, why was that moment such a stand out? I grew up in the Bay area in Silicon Valley, where Apple originates from, and, you know, part of being that immigrant like child of an immigrant was the fact always achieve, right? Always push. I had my tiger mom.

Those acceptable careers of doctor, lawyer, engineer. Like, those things were always kind of a big thing in the household. However, when it came to art and trying, that was the one thing my mother never pushed me on. It was always something that was celebrated that she was proud of, and something that she just let it kind of go, let it kind of go in terms of like, hey, like, we're just gonna put you in classes, but we're not gonna judge you for your work.

When times got tough at home, the piano classes stopped. The tutoring classes started, but the drawing classes never stopped. And so I kind of, you know, when my mom goes, how do I choose this career? I'm like, kind of. It's because of you, right? You gave me that encouragement, to just let me find myself in my creativity.

That really made me confident in this kind of career path going forward. And I always tell this story because it's really and it's really uncommon to find someone that looks like me in the path of creativity in advertising. It is very much like Mad Men. Have you ever seen that show? It is very dominant by white males. And so me coming into a room being a little over five feet tall, being a female, because less than 12% are females as creative directors, as leaders in this field, as a minority, often the only one even within Los Angeles.

So I'm in these rooms where I'm one of one. And so it is really important to think about how that origin really does affect who we see in a position like mine. Whether or not someone has someone to kind of model after or see. And so I kind of go back to that other point in my junior year of high school where I got to see someone that was a woman that was a mom of three in a creative role.

And so I think it's really incredible to have kind of these figures that you can look up to that you can be like, oh, I can see myself as that person. Because that did really allow me to go, okay, where did what did she study? What did this person do? Okay. Maybe I can do something like that.

So throughout my career, and I would say as my journey really kind of pushed forward, it was kind of finding my place. I know today we're going to talk more about authenticity, but it is being at a place where you feel comfortable, especially if you are one of one on a team or you are kind of at first to kind of come through.

You have to have these environments that really support and foster your growth so that you have kind of the room to be creative, to be kind of have that self-expression. And so I started my career in Los Angeles. I'm still in Los Angeles now. I started at Chiat Day. Went through kind of the big agencies down here.

I was at R/GA. I was at David and Goliath. I was at a shop named Omelet. And now I'm the chief creative officer. It focuses us on multicultural marketing and specifically on Asian American. So it's really wonderful to kind of have this full circle back to where I can really do work that celebrates my identity.

Which is definitely a first for me and it's quite lovely.

Michele Ching
So congratulations on such an amazing journey, and thank you for sharing with us the childhood story that brought you into the space. I think that when you are telling this story, it would be remiss for me to not highlight how your story is very much one about leading with authenticity, how you essentially found yourself, and your identity through this creative outlet, and you've risen through, you know, a challenging industry to such an esteemed position at an incredible creative agency that is set out to really change what the face of advertising looks like, especially for the Asian-American community.

So truly congratulations. And maybe that's just a great way to kind of pivot into your work now. And authenticity has clearly been important for you up until this point. But now, how important do you feel like authenticity is not just to you as the individual, but to the work that you put out into the world?

Bernice Chao
So whenever, you know, I kind of talk within Asians in Advertising as a community, we talk about who we are, right, our identity, how we feel in the room. And so many times, I would say kind of in the beginning of my career, kind of had the stutter step of like, who am I in this room? And a lot of times as a creative, you're really putting your mind into what the consumer is thinking, right? What are the consumer coming in with? What are their beliefs? What do they know about their brand?

And then you're kind of also, I would say creativity is a lot of validation. Right? So validation the consumer, the brand that you're serving and then who you're kind of working under. And if you're coming in with such a different mindset or if there is a kind of a very, I would say, fixed mindset of who you're serving, it could be kind of hard for someone like me to be in that position, right?

I make this comment that I recently was judging an advertising show, and when I was looking at all the creative materials coming through and people were submitting, I was like, wow, so many of these commercials have references to classic rock. As a child of an immigrant, I do not have that much background of classic rock. I'm not in a room concepting creative commercials and I'm like, I have a classic rock idea, right? Because that's not my childhood. That's not what I know.

So whenever I talk about what does it mean to be different and what is kind of that superpower you're bringing into a room, you're bringing diversity, right? You're bringing difference in thought.
And I often talk about my favorite commercials. And when you look behind the veil of who was the team behind it, you do see that it's not your typical Mad Men creatives. Perhaps it was a woman team. Perhaps it was someone that understands a nuance of something else, another intersectionality. And that makes for a really great and different work, more interesting work.

I love this one spot. It shows an Asian woman, Asian grandma who loves the NBA, right? And you're like, if you were to make an NBA commercial, you wouldn't be like, okay, let's throw an Asian grandma in it. You know, at one point she is in a walker, but you're watching this commercial and you're just like, this is the funniest commercial ever. It's called Emily. It is so funny.

And I think there is this thing of like, okay, if we do something different, no one's going to like it. But if you look at the reviews under YouTube and the comments, they were like, this is the first commercial that I went to go look for, or I am Chinese and this looks just like my grandma and her name is Emily too, how did you even write that? Did you write this about her?

And I think we have to really celebrate the difference of storytelling because it will break through. It will make for better consumer engagement. It makes it just a better spot. And if we're going to spend all this money and capture so much attention, wouldn’t we want to make better spots? And so I love this idea of like, however you can really celebrate different teams, different types of people in your workplace, it will make for better work.

Michele Ching
That makes so much sense. And I think like for us at Sightly, we talk a lot about this concept of bespoke nuance. And so I think for brands, to your point, it can be really scary sometimes to go outside of the norm, to kind of go with the Asian grandma instead of just the, you know, sure-thing celebrity in a spot, right?

So I feel like what we think about at Sightly and our platform Brand Mentality that, you know, is all about helping brands connect with their authenticity and also connecting with the consumer in an authentic way, it's exactly this. It's identifying what is the consumer's mindset, what is the brand's mindset and perspectives and opinions, and then how do we find that connection point through news trends, social media in real time.

And it becomes bespoke and nuanced because on the Sightly side, we think about things like allowing brands to create their own brand profile, where they can set all of those parameters so they can see well what is trending. And then once they see what's trending and in real time, they can feel that level of comfortability to go ahead with this spot that might be a little of a challenger perspective, but they know that it's validated both for their brand, their brand's values and their consumer's mindset and the consumer's values.

So I love that. So when I think about what you shared, I want to learn a little bit more about your own work process, if that makes any sense. So is there a part of the way that you produce work like this that allows you to ensure a sense of authenticity in your own process, protocol connected to action, and like how you guys make those kinds of decisions in your business?

Bernice Chao
Well, whenever I start a project — and this is something we teach the students in my marketing program — is to ask why, right? Ask why, ask why again, ask why again, right? Because I think there's this idea sometimes when, you know, especially young creatives start or young strategists start and they're just like, okay, the idea is like, right, you get a famous celebrity plus another famous event. So you're like, okay, give me a random example: Taco Bell, Beyoncé, Coachella, right.

But the thing is, you're like, why? Why her? Why that activation? Can I take Taco Bell out and put Starbucks, McDonald's, another brand in? And so really getting into the why: why are we doing this? Why is it important for this brand? Why can only this brand do it?

And so for me that requires a lot of research. The brand is going to tell you what they need — what medium, right, whether that's video, commercial, TikTok, whatever that is — it can tell you. But just to step back a moment and go, hey, what is our consumer really into? You know, and Sightly does have a great platform, they can help with that. But also what is, like, what are the stats? What is the data showing? What is the trend showing, right? Kind of compiling as much of that nuance that you can so that when a client does ask, hey, why Beyoncé? Why Coachella? you're like, this is exactly why. This is why it only matters to us, why this only makes sense to us.

And I think the sharper we can get, it makes our creative that much smarter. I always say to my students that a lot of times our clients come from business school, nothing creative. They're really there to make sure they sell as much of that product as they can. We're coming from a very, maybe more like subjective, ethereal point of view.

And so when you kind of sell them on an idea, they're like kind of trying to connect the dots between your idea and how much they can sell. And so however you can help kind of soften that landing up — yes, exactly why the data points make sense in any kind of way. Right. So I usually like to say here's like an insight, here's a stat and here's why your brand makes sense. And I would say that's usually kind of how I soften into an idea or a theme or a concept, so that it is very tangible that they're like, okay, totally get the nuance here, that is why it works.

Michele Ching
That's exactly what we do at Sightly. Like, it feels like you sort of read our insights reports, you know, just out loud, to be completely honest. But the reason why I think you do it, and also we do it this way, is because I think brands really need to. They know that when it comes to marketing, they're ultimately connecting with our limbic system, our emotional brain. That's where people are making those buying decisions from to drive the numbers that the brand owners want to see on their spreadsheets.

But in order to feel connected in the tangible spreadsheet, connect the emotional creative concept to the tangible spreadsheet. They really need that bridge. And so it's brilliant that you've essentially created your own version of an authenticity bridge to hold a client's hand to, here is how this concept is actually going to grow your business, and here's how we know why, and here's why it's so specific and bespoke to you. I love that.
So if you don't mind, I'd love to hear one or two examples of where you actually have done that. Or was it Beyoncé, Coachella, and Taco Bell?

Bernice Chao
Oh, I wish — no, not at that scale. But, you know, I could definitely share a project that we just shipped. So by the time this comes out, it should be live. We did a project with the Ad Council, and so our client was Ready.gov and FEMA, and so they talked about disaster preparedness, and the Asian community are not good at being disaster-proof. This is having a go bag ready. Like, I definitely am at fault here for not having a go bag ready.

But why is that, right? You know, we're looking at data, and, you know, we're definitely good at making sure there's a lot of money in the bank. There's certain things that we do do, but the go bag is not one of those things. And so as we're kind of looking through the data, we're like, where is the disconnect happening? You know, we're telling them to do this, but they're not doing it.

And so one of the insights that we pulled is that 90% of Asians would rather get their information through a family member or a loved one and will listen to it versus advertising. And so that became the theme of our commercial called Inner Circles, right? And it's all about, hey, our inner circles will tell us to be prepared, right, and we can plan together.

So it was really wonderful that we had this really strong insight of like, okay, how can we talk about these close-knit family circles? And we showed four different families. So we had Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino and South Asian — specifically Indian. And so we had four different groups. We actually also had a separate campaign for Native Hawaiian Pacific Island as well. So it was really nice to do something for the community that I am a part of, and to reach them in a way that feels authentic to this community directly.

And so we had all these really nuanced ways of how we can do this. Those blue cookie tins — growing up in a family where everything was reusable, that's like, you know, for us kids, they became toy storages — and so we used something like that to really communicate, hey, that's a place to put emergency numbers or things that you need.

So we showed up in these different ways that are really true to our community in terms of how they would show up for this. In the Chinese family up front, we have grandma coming in and she's like, I bought two can openers because they're two-for-one. You know, speaking for myself, I love a good deal.

So we have these little things that are insights on the community in a way that the community wants to be spoken to. So that was a really cool campaign to work on.

Michele Ching
I love that example. Thank you for sharing. I think that's such a beautiful example of not only how you're able to show up authentically to each individual community, but also how you took that insight and the statistic and you connected it to nuance — blue cookie tin, two-for-one deal — I think all of that makes so much sense. And I think you said it perfectly: it's like you're speaking the language visually, insights and emotion to the audience in a way that they want to be seen, the way that they celebrate themselves to be seen.

And the fact that you guys went out of your way to identify each one of the sub-communities within the Asian-American experience, I think is just brilliant. So I have no doubt that by the time that this airs, the spot will do extremely well. Thank you for sharing that story.

Bernice Chao
I would also add that we did focus-test this, and we actually brought people of the community to watch it. And I would not believe the responses. Like, I kid you not, even the person that facilitated the testing was like, I have never seen my community represented. This is so beautiful. And the people in the room were actually moved to tears.

And also it's a very simple spot. It's not trying to pull, you know, tears from you, but I think there is this need of like I don't see myself represented and I see my culture represented in a way that's not stereotypical sometimes, and it was really well-received in those moments. So it is showing that, hey, we do need more of these voices and more of this storytelling.

Michele Ching
Also, it also is a way to validate how successful the campaign can and will be. So then the spreadsheets do the math that makes complete sense for the business. So I think, you know, altogether when you can do the right thing for the community and it can actually be more effective from a business outcome perspective, that's really the sweet spot. And I think that the way you get to that sweet spot — at least from the perspective of Sightly — the way you hit that sweet spot consistently is through prioritizing authenticity.

So I love it.

All right. I think I'm ready to ask us some closing comments if that's okay. I want to know, with everything that you shared here today, what is your invitation or your call to action for folks — that listeners can do some of the things we talked about in this interview? How can they integrate some of the tools that you shared today?

Bernice Chao
That's a great question about how can we bring our whole self to our work, our whole self to the office. What does that look like for the brand? Because we are here in service of the brand and doing the best work we can. And consumers want to feel what the brand is saying, right? We don't want a generic brand. We want a brand that stands for something.

We see all these great brands out there, whether that's Apple and they stand for creativity or Patagonia for serving the future and our environment — we want to feel that thing. And so, you know, if I were to say, how can we do that, right? If you are a creative, definitely spend that time finding a place where you feel like you can produce the most creatively comfortable work you can by having an environment that supports you and who you are and what you bring to your work.

I would also say really give the brand a personality, really make the brand mean something. And I would say lean into it. I love certain campaigns where I was like, wow, I can't believe the brands did that. But it makes them so much stronger. Nike — they stood up for Kaepernick, right? Colin Kaepernick — they put it up on a trail billboard.

So whether you were a fan, you were into it; if you weren't, you did something else. I don't know if I could say this, but Patagonia wrote on the tags at one point to vote, and they had a very specific message — you can all look that up, what they said — but they had a very specific positioning.

So for me, I love when brands can really do that and can really own that. And that makes me really excited. As a creative, we know exactly what kind of zany thing Liquid Death is going to do, right? They do these funny things that you're just like, only Liquid Death can do that.

And so for those that are listening, it's saying that it's okay to have something that makes you unique and different. It will actually make you stand out and make you a much more liked brand or something that people will actually be seeking out. And I would say at the individual level, at a brand level, an agency level, or even a corporation level, find your unique spot and really lean into it.

Michele Ching
Well, thank you, Bernice. So I would say from a Sightly perspective, we absolutely cosign on all of that. We created an entire platform called Brand Mentality so brands could own their personality in all places and spaces across the internet. So 1,000% we are aligned and we agree.

All right, last two questions — a little bit of a lightning round. The first one: name your favorite mission-driven business and why.

Bernice Chao
Oh wow, that is — okay, hold on. I mean I just said Patagonia. I just think that they are so lovely. I love that they were like, I don't even want you to buy another jacket from me. Like, I think that they will sew their things and they told, like, corporate bros, like don't buy our stuff anymore. I actually think it's really impressive as a brand whose job is to sell things.

Michele Ching
Yeah, I love that. All right. And last one: what would you leverage your courage for?

Bernice Chao
That is such a really big question. And I feel like I hope I'm still doing that in my daily, right. I hope that I am still using my courage to give voices to those who are underrepresented. And I would say that is why I teach at schools. This is why I do speak, and this is why I do have a nonprofit — not because I like to be heard, not because I'm a big extrovert.

It's really because I do think that there definitely needs to be different voices and to hear different perspectives, and that hopefully with representation there will be more voices that are different so we can keep pushing for just diversity of thought and just more, I would say, understanding overall.

Michele Ching
It's beautiful. And as your friend, I just want to validate that you absolutely do do that every single day.

Bernice Chao
Thank you.

Michele Ching
You're welcome. So thank you so much. This wraps us up for today's episode. And I again am so honored to get to feature you and your work. Thank you for sharing your experience and your expertise with us today.

Bernice Chao
Thanks, Michele. Thanks Sightly.

Michele Ching
All right. I'll see you next time. Bye.