Justin Oberman

Freelance Creative Director

Oberman & Partners

Publicity & Promotions for Creative Leaders and Brands

Publicist, Promotor and Advertising Impresario

I am a copywriter. People who cannot write or do not want to write hire me for only one conceivable reason: to transmit to some audience a message or impression that will get them to react in a way that is to the person who hired me's advantage. 

In order to do that I help people and brands write things worth reading, or think of things worth writing about. Sometimes, even both at the same time.

Copywriting and Creative Coach, Creative + Brand Consultant for Hire, Available for talks + workshops.

Freelance Copywriter & Ghostwriter

The LA Jewish Home

Oversee (and sometimes even create) the advertising placed in the magazine
Oversee the marketing of the magazine
Write a column on marketing
Oversee the contest section
Oversee cover art

Marketing Director / Editor 

Laetro

Designed specifically for creatives by creatives, 
Laetro.com is a pay-as-you-go proprietary collaborative platform that seamlessly connects  businesses and brands with top-tier creative talent.

ECD Partner

Insign - Agence de communication

Collier.Simon

Generate Life Sciences, Cord Blood Registry, Community Colleges of Los Angeles, LastPass

(also worked a little on PayPal & Experian TikTok campaigns)

Associate Creative Director, Copy

Freelance

I use all the the extra knowledge I accumulate as a copywriter to write, research and verify thousands of questions for trivia apps, shows, websites, periodicals and quiz databases.

Freelance Quiz and Trivia Writer

The Adcom Group

Cleveland Clinic, GetGo, ACCO, New Business

Associate Creative Director, Writer

Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Hershey's (Whoppers Candy). Now ask me how I got the gig.

Freelance Senior Copywriter

Obercreative 

Here's the shpiel.

Whether it's with a click or a smile (or both), I'm a senior-level advertising copywriter, and content strategist with a knack for creating the kind of brand stories, content "gamification" and cheeky/satirical messaging that moves both people and products. 

What I love most about my job is the ability to collaborate with cool people to conjure up creative solutions for brands.

With over 10 years experience I prefer to inspire rather than dictate. As a senior creative, I've lead teams of copywriters, content and product managers, UX and graphic designers, front-end developers, and video producers... I believe strongly in treating every member of my team exactly how I would want to be treated and translating that level of attention to the consumer. 

Beyond TVC's & taglines, my specialties include 
• new business pitches 
• web & interactive copy
• experiential
• brand messaging
• content strategy 
• Direct Marketing copy (especially email and Facebook Ads)
• Game shows
• Crypto & ICO launches
• and writing. Lots and lots of writing

•Agencies: CP+B, Drumroll, Davis Elen, Crypto Media Group, Quigley-Simpson, Phenomenon, The Woo, Contend, Mosaic, Razorfish, Euro RSCG, MotherNY, EO Interactive, Bocca Digital, Lesli Ink, Bancs Media, and Street Attack

•Brands: Hershey’s, Spartan, Fannie Mae, Capital One, GreatCall/Jitterbug, Kiddie Academy, Chase Marriott Rewards, Chase Freedom,  Intuit, Lenovo, Motorola, DeLonghi, Microsoft, Oracle, Welches, PlutoTV,  Google, Citibank, Target, Verizon, Jaguar, Commonwealth Bank Australia, Virginia Lottery, Clearasil, AOL, Gagosian, COLD-EEZE, Blackwing Pencils, YINC, Pura D'or & 2-Minute Club, Caffe Furia, I am Yusani.

Freelance Copywriter / Creative Director

Brand Response Copywriter, Creative Director - I can talk like a direct marketer ✓ and create brand awareness ✓ at the same time. 🤯 DM me to learn how. | Advertising | Branding | Strategy |

I started an ad agency in 2020 during the pandemic.

Quietly grew it to 7 figures using nothing but organic LinkedIn posting and word of mouth.

Then, in 2023, I burned out.

So, I closed my agency.

But before I did that, I had a stark realization. 

Besides the influx of business, my following on LinkedIn had grown to over 30k. 

I also realized that most of the people and brands that hired me did so because they liked my Linkedin posts. 

They liked the way I thought. 

I did this without taking classes from the gurus, paying attention to my metrics, or writing for the algorithm.

I figured, if I could do it for me, I could probably do it for other people as well.

So, I started offering ghostwriting services to high-level ad executives and solopreneurs in early 2023.

And the results were pretty phenomenal.

In just 6 months, I grew from zero clients to over 15

And on November 1st, 2023, I closed my ad agency for good. 

Since that day, I’ve taken my unconventional approach to branding and advertising  and started using it to ghostwrite and manage the personal brands of several high-profile executives, founders, business owners, and solopreneurs (but I can’t tell you who).

To scale the business, I partnered with LinkedIn B2B ad whisperer Aaron Zakowski to form Genius Scouts.

My Mission is to help people and brands write things worth reading and do things worth writing about.

Here are all the ways you can work with me:

GENIUS SCOUTS THE AGENCY

Need help building and managing your personal brand? Let the world's only full-service ad agency (but for people) do it for you. 

→ GO HERE: https://www.geniusscouts.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=JustinProfileLink

LAETRO 

Need help creating an ad campaign or with a marketing project? Let me put together a team for you. 

→ DM me

HIBACHI COPY

Just need copywriting help? Me, you (and whoever you think should be in there as well). Two days. All the copy you need. Done. 
→ GO HERE: www.hibachicopy.com

Email: justin@justinoberman.com
X: @obercr8ive

Creative Director / Copywriter

Oberman & Partners is a creative consultancy for brands and agencies that still believe in the magic of advertising. 

Known as the guy that brands and agencies call when they’re stuck or need a little extra creative juice, OBERMAN diagnoses the problem and (if necessary) puts together a unique team of PARTNERS (freelancers or other agencies) to solve them.

If you heavily depend on AI to write your content, you need to read this.

Last week, a client asked me to review something they had “written.”

I spotted it as AI immediately. 

When I called them out on it, they were surprised. 

“How could you tell?” 

The truth is, I couldn’t. 

I just knew. 

But not because of technical tells or word patterns. 

It was because of something else. 

Something more challenging to name.

Something I tried to write about 22 years ago  for my  philosophy master's thesis, which was cleverly titled “AI vs Authentic Intelligence.”

And something a visiting professor who agreed to review my thesis told me I might find the answer to in Ludwig Wittgenstein's “Blue Book” 

For those who care, the visiting professor’s name was Jacques Derrida (unfortunately, he died before I finished it). 

Anyway, in the Blue Book, Wittgenstein argues that meaning isn't stored in words, but lives in how we use them together, with other people, in what he refers to as Language Games.

One of the best examples of this is the Blue Book itself, which was originally dictated to his students at Cambridge. 

But another great example of this is colors. 

While an AI processes "Blue" as RGB values, wavelengths, and data points, when you and I say "Blue," we're invoking things like the sky we've stared at through classroom windows, flowers we've seen, or Caribbean water we've swam in. 

We're playing a language game that started when someone pointed at something and we all agreed: "Yes, that's blue."

And this is why humans consistently outperform machines at detecting AI content in studies. 

Because, unlike machines, we're not just looking for patterns. We're looking for connection. And when it’s not there, we sense the absence of something deeper. A kind of lived experience bleeding through the words.

The irony here is that the very reason AI can’t detect its own kind is that they're all speaking the same sourceless language game as well. 

Like trying to spot a ghost when you're also a ghost.

For those of you using AI to write, understanding this philosophy of language matters more than you think. 

You see, most AI content fails to avoid this uncanny valley, not because it's technically wrong….

But exactly because it perfectly references experiences it never had, emotions it never felt, and surprises it never really stumbled into.

Which means the solution to avoid this uncanny valley is not to try to make the mimicking better. 

It’s actually the opposite. 

It’s to embrace the mess. 

One of the best ways to do that is to do adapt a more drunken kung fu style when it comes to prompting. 

Don’t make them so rigid. 

Leave room for "hallucinations." 

Let the AI wander off-script. 

And then make it make you edit it like a human who's actually lived.

Because, as any professional writer knows, great writing occurs… 

1. When two great unexpected thoughts collide.  

2. When you have to clean up the mess while editing. 

#onebookaweek

Publicity Copywriter, Ghostwriter & Impresario. I help people and brands write things worth reading and do things worth getting written about.

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I was offered a $500/month AI service that would scrape everything about me online and automatically create content both in my “voice” as well based on the way I think. 

So I tested it out for a month…

Was impressed by its personal scrapping capability. 

Was mildly impressed by its cloning capability (it failed my Tom Wolfe test though)

But eventually declined…

The newly initiated Y Combinator founder pretended to be shocked. 

“Why? “

So I got philosophical. 

I started explaining Marshall McLuhan's tetrad and my friend Andrew McLuhan’s recent explanation to me about what happens when technology overextends itself beyond the human augmentation it was designed to enhance. 

Spoiler alert: It inevitably eats itself.

I also got ethical. 

I told him that his obviously automated 5-in-row AI comments on my posts irk me and make me think badly of him. 

How once I realized it wasn't actually him, I wanted to block him. 

“Why would you want to block someone engaging with your content?” He asked. 

“Because it's not someone.” I replied. 

Then I went deeper. 

"The problem with AI claiming to write in someone's voice is it doesn't ask the real philosophical questions. What IS language? What IS a voice? What IS style?" 

I talked about Wittgenstein’s talking lion and explained how any LLM that thinks that a persons voice  has anything to do with the words they use only  proves they don’t understand what a voice actually is.

That’s when the founder started mocking  me:

"Why didn’t you become a philosopher?" 

"Because philosophers don’t make a lot of money." 

"But what IS money? How do we know we're not in a simulation…?"

He was being brilliant. Funny. Unexpected.

I stopped him. 

"See? THIS is exactly where  your technology fails."

“Your AI would never anticipate you'd respond like that. But that spontaneous philosophical humor? That's great content.”

And that’s the problem with AI cloning services like his. 

You can't automate becoming. 
You can only automate what you've already been.

Or in other words…

AI can only collect everything about me. 
But it can only collect what I already am. What I've already said. 
What's I’ve already done.

But no one wants to stay the same forever. 

And  no one wants you to talk about the same things forever either.

They want the new stuff. 

They want the contradictions. 
They want to experience the unexpected turns. 
They want to see your evolution. 

AI only does that when it hallucinates.

And the minute everyone realizes their feed is full of ghosts talking to ghosts that’s when the whole thing collapses.

Your best  content isn't what an AI can generate from your past. 

It's what emerges when your mind collides with someone else’s, in real time.

Like when a founder gets philosophically playful with a skeptic.

That's my opinion.

I’m sure Sky Yang and his partners at Imagine AI (YC F25) have a different one. 

And that is exactly what makes human interaction on social media so great.

A new client called me last week, excited to get started. 

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“Someone I know on  LinkedIn recommended you,” he said confidently.

“Cool. Who?”

Long pause.

“I can’t remember exactly, but someone definitely mentioned you.”

I smiled. Because I know what happened. But for some reason it’s something we (in the marketing industry) don’t t like to talk about. 

For 5 years, I have been posting on LinkedIn everyday. 

My new client saw those posts hundreds of times. 

He never liked or commented on a post (I checked).

But that’s the funny thing about marketing psychology. 

The more we see an ad or a person’s content, the less we remember seeing it.

But the more familiar the brand becomes.

As my buddy Jonathan Rolley might put it: 
 
My new clients  brain had filed away “Justin Oberman  = good choice” from countless micro-exposures so when decision time came, his subconscious retrieved that familiarity and his conscious mind invented a rational explanation.

“Someone I know on LinkedIn recommended you.”

Research shows 95% of purchase decisions happen subconsciously. 

Yet 87% of people claim marketing  doesn’t influence them.

Brand awarness folks and performance marketing folks like to fight over whose right. 

But the truth is they’re both right.

They don’t consciously remember the ads or the content or the earned media. 

But their buying behavior tells a different story.

This is marketing’s greatest magic trick:

It works best when people don’t know it’s working.

The most effective marketing is consistent. But it doesn’t feel like advertising at all.

It feels like something a friend keeps talking about. 

Need help creating self-publicity (what other people call building a personal brand) to promote your agency, company, or business? Send me a DM. Let's chat.

👍 to share

I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out what the hell is going on with LinkedIn. 

And I finally spoke to some people there.

If you think LinkedIn sucks lately,, you're not alone. 

The changes are affecting many users, and it's a hot topic of discussion with many people. 

Many many Linkedinfluencers (and even some gurus) are  leaving the platform for other platforms like Substack, beehiv or even Reddit or X.

A significant amount of the conversation revolves around things like user experience, reach and the quality of content on the platform. 

Based on my recent discussions with people who know, here's what's likely happening:

1. There’s an algorithm overhaul going on:

LinkedIn has been tweaking its algorithms (Yes, they have multiple algorithms running at the same time. No, it’s impossible to determine which one is effecting you.). 

The main point of the tweak is to  try and prioritize what it considers "trusted content." The idea is stupid as it sounds. Especially since no one seems to be able to tell me what “trusted content” actually is.  

One person told me that all this means is that LinkedIn is trying to only show the right content to the right people. Again, which is as stupid as it sounds. 

But what I do know is that it does have something to with your profile. I also know that this ultimately  means that even high-quality posts might see a drop in impressions if they don't “fit the new criteria.”

2. You really might want to think twice about using AI (or at least the way you’re using it). 

There's speculation that LinkedIn is actively trying to reduce the visibility of content it flags as being generated by AI. Well, it turns out that this is true. Which is a good thing. But this could inadvertently affect human-written or edited  posts as well, as the detection methods are not perfect.

3. There’s a shift away from recency: 

The algorithm is no longer prioritizing the newest posts. Instead, it's resurfacing older, more relevant content from a user's network. This means your new posts have a longer shelf life. This also means that your newer posts may not get that initial burst of visibility you're used to.

4. There’s a crackdown on "Engagement Pods" and Spam: 

I have it confirmed that LinkedIn is also cracking down on what it considers inauthentic engagement (such as from engagement pods or automated and spammy comments.  It you don’t have to be in any engagement pods or use any automated tools for the algo to pick this up. The algo can still flag your content if your engagement patterns feel automated or fake. 

But it’s not all doom and gloom. I help write over over 70 LinkedIn posts a week for me, my clients and my students. 

So I’ve also figured out what’s working. 

And I’m going to dive deep and share it all with you in my next newsletter on, you guessed it, Substack (link to subscribe in the comments). 

Spoiler alert: The gurus are not going to admit to some of the things I’m going to tell you.

The algorithm wants you to believe in overnight success
The industry celebrates the viral moment
The case studies worship the big breakthrough
But the greatest campaigns  and the greatest people weren’t built in a day.
They were built drop by drop. 
Moment by moment
Choice by choice
This hand drawn #AdvertiZine is about the the most powerful force in advertising that nobody discusses
Check this out 👇

The Law of Accumulation 

You can post things worth reading or you can:

1. Do something worth talking about
2. Do it again
3. Let other people post things about you
4. Then keep doing it

Nobody is coming to give you a platform.

You think you need a bigger audience, better branding, or a viral post?

What you really need is to just start doing things so powerful that people have no choice but to pay attention.

Your impact is measured in the conversations you start, not the content you share.

So become a headline, not a columnist.
Do the thing that gets talked about. 
Start the project that gets criticized.

If you focus on that the risks you take, and the change you create will echo long after the algorithm forgets you exist.

This is why I am politically agnostic except when it comes to one issue: 

Freedom of speech. 

But this is not meant to be a political post. 

Or about  defending or arguing about the things that he said. 

It’s just about something I strongly believe in (and help my clients figure out and talk scout all the time).

Something that came to mind when I noticed Charlie Kirk had a LinkedIn account he never used. 

Most people are trying to post things worth reading when they should be doing things worth posting about.

Social media made Charlie famous. 

But most of what he did was not on social media. 

Something to think about.

This isn't just a predictable rhetorical structure. It's a dead giveaway of AI-generated content.

IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN GETTING NERDY ABOUT THIS SENTANCE STRUCTURE, AND JUST WANT TO LEARN WHY YOU SHOULD AVOID IT, SKIP TO THE 👇

The above rhetorical structure is referred to as Redefinition or Reframing (or if yoy want to get linguistic nerdy, Correctio).

It is achieved by using a combination of what linguists and rhetoricians refer to as Procatalepsis and Auxesis.

PROCATALEPSIS is a device where the speaker anticipates a potential objection, argument, or misconception and refutes it in advance. 

By saying "This isn't just a predictable rhetorical structure," I am anticipating my readers' possible dismissal of my idea as abstract or impractica and preemptively disarming that criticism.

AUXESIS (or Climax) is simply the act of arranging words or clauses in a sequence of increasing importance. 

In my example above, the structure moves from the dismissed, lesser idea ("predictable rhetorical structure") to a more significant, or impactful, or "correct" idea ("a dead giveaway of AI-generated content"). 

This creates a sense of escalation, making my point sound more profound and urgent (even when, like in my example, it's not).

Anyway...

👇

This type of sentance structure is incredibly effective for persuasion:

• Creates authority: It positions the speaker as someone who sees a deeper truth that others might miss.

• Builds urgency: By reframing a simple issue as a "strategic imperative" or a "paradigm shift," it makes the topic seem more important.

• It sounds profound: It's a shortcut to sounding insightful without necessarily adding new information. It simply repackages an idea to give it more weight.

Because of that, good writers know to use it sparingly.

AI, on the other hand, only knows what works and so will use it every chance it gets.  And, if the piece is long enough, it will even use it multiple times in the same output.

If you see the above structure in your AI-generated content, you should either remove it (most of the time, you can delete it without it affecting the flow of the text)...

Or you can use other rhetorical devices to say the same thing:

For example:

You can turn it into a...

Rhetorical Question:
"When you see a sentence begin with 'This isn't just...,' can you think of a clearer sign that an AI is behind the keyboard?"

Metaphor:
"The 'This is not.../It's...' sentance structure is the predictable digital fingerprint AI leaves at the scene of the text."

Hyperbole:
"The This is not.../It's... rhetorical structure screams 'AI-generated' so loudly it drowns out every other word on the page."

I'm soon going to release my Copy Hunter Guide for Editing AI Like A Human.

Subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to know when it's released. Link in comments

How to use AI to write in your own unique voice (assuming you have one). 

Don’t  use it to write. 

Use it to help you do all the tedious things good writers do before they write. 

Use it to help you think:

1.	Dump your raw thoughts into AI
2.	Have it challenge your ideas
3.	Use it to expand your perspective
4.	Extract the frameworks it reveals
5.	Use it to rewrite everything YOURSELF

Your voice (if you have one) or style or whatever doesn’t come from the way you put words together. 

It  comes from a life time of your unique experiences, perspectives and way of connecting ideas.

In other words… your voice can’t be generated.

It has to be excavated from your own mind.

Need help finding your voice?

I have a free masterclass for that coming up. 

Link in comments.

TLDR: Everyone's obsessing over "personal branding" when they should be thinking "personal publicity."

I Hired a Circus to Teach My  CLIENT  About Publicity 

My clients have started outperforming me (both theatrically and metrically).

And I can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing. 

All this started when I decided to add promotion and stunt-style publicity work to my offering. 

Because why pitch the press when you can make the press come to you? 

I need to practice what I preach more. 

… at least I’m making my clients' PR agencies work easier. 

Hey… that’s actually not a bad idea.

Maybe I should pitch my services to some traditional PR agencies. 

Or team up with a traditional PR person. 

Anyone know any?

How does an Orthodox rabbi become an internationally recognized relationship expert, a confidant to pop-culture icons, and a household name? 

For anyone interested in the difference between personal branding and personal publicity (and why you should focus on the latter), Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's career is a masterclass in bringing a niche message to the masses.

A child of a broken home, it started with becoming more religious at Oxford and close with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. 

This was followed in 1999 by the proactive publication of the book "Kosher Sex.”

The message inside the book is actually beautiful. 

But this shock and awe tactic soon became his signature method for framing modern problems through the lens of ancient wisdom.

That was the launch. 

Boteach’s profile soon skyrocketed through his high-profile association with Michael Jackson.

But instead of being just a footnote in someone else's story, he masterfully used that platform to solidify his brand as a spiritual guide to a secular world.

This gave him an even bigger platform to help couples using  ancient Jewish wisdom  through more books and even a TV show called Shalom In the Home. 

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him several times throughout his career and even having the honor of being spit on while walking and talking with him in Crown Heights. 

Love him or hate him, here are four key lessons in self-publicity I learned from him:

1. Reframe the Conversation: 

Boteach didn't invent relationship advice, but by applying the "Kosher" label to topics like sex and dating, he created an entirely new category that only he, as a Rabbi, could own and that forces people to see a familiar topic in a new light.

2. Go Where the People Are: 

Why look for a niche in your industry when you can turn your industry into a niche in someone else’s 

Boteach didn't wait for an audience to find him in the synagogue. True to his Chabad training, he went directly to them, even if that meant going on Oprah with a beard and a yarmulke to talk about sex. 

He understood that you need to put on a show to stand out in the modern world and that to have a global impact, you must perform on the global stage, not just the one people think you belong on. 

3. Influence the influencers: 

He understood that your network is your amplifier and that building strategic relationships with influential figures can introduce your message to a world of new audiences.

4. Embrace the Provocative : 

Rabbi Boteach consistently uses bold, attention-grabbing language to cut through the media noise. But like Like P.T. Barnum, he always ensures that what he delivers has more value than the noise. 

Below, Rabbi Boteach jumps into bed with the media to promote his  book
“The Jewish Guide to Adultery” (which is not what it sounds like). 

If you had a message that could help a lot of people, wouldn’t you do whatever it takes to get their attention?

If not, why not?

Shana Tova!

#advertisinghistorytoday

Effective marketing is based on human nature.

Great ads are based on aspects of human nature other than those the product solves for. 

For example:

Obsession with food is part of human nature. 

The reason for this is that we need to eat to live.

But this is not why people buy Twinkies. 

Obsession over hygiene is also part of human nature. 

Staying clean is essential for self-preservation.

But this is not why people use minty toothpaste brands over baking soda. 

The problem is that no one will ever admit what their real human nature is doing. 

This is what makes marketing the hardest job that looks easy.

Taplio

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