2 Minutes With ... Gordy Sang and Brian Siedband, Co-Founders and CCOs of Quality Meats

Gordy and Brian are co-founders and chief creative officers of Quality Meats, a Chicago-based boutique agency.

The duo have collaborated for 17 years. Alongside head of production Kacey Hart, they launched Quality Meats in 2020. The shop’s brand work includes Huggies, Regal Cinemas. Doordash, SAXX Underwear, Olliv Crypto, Marquee Sports and the City of Chicago.

Earlier, Gordy and Brian held senior slots at Leo Burnett, Deutsch L.A. and FCB, working with such brands as Taco Bell, Samsung, Playstation and Netflix. 

We spent two minutes with Gordy and Brian to learn more about their backgrounds, their creative inspirations and recent work they’ve admired.

Gordy and Brian, tell us …

Where you grew up, and where you live now.

• Gordy: I grew up in the north suburbs of Chicago, and currently live in the city.
• Brian: I also grew up in the north suburbs of Chicago, and now live in a different north suburb of Chicago.

How you first realized you were creative.

• Gordy: My Ultimate Warrior costume when I was 6 years old. The details and craft were impeccable.
• Brian: My mom forced me into doing children’s theater when I was in third grade—and I was not terrible at it.

A person you idolized creatively early on.

• Gordy: My mom. She was good at drawing and other artistic pursuits.
• Brian: My brother. We were always doing shtick and inventing dumb characters.

A moment from high school or college that changed your life.

• Gordy: I was a late bloomer. So being a 5-foot, 3-inch fat freshman/sophomore kid gave me some humility.
• Brian: My high school music teacher encouraged me to try out for this All-American Grammy choir and I made it and got to go to the Grammys. We performed at parties and alongside some semi-famous one-hit-wonders. Entertainment Tonight played a clip of it, and it probably inflated my ego a little too much.

A visual artist or band/musician you admire.

• Gordy: Don’t Fret, a Chicago street artist. I just love the intentionally low-fi naivete. He recently did all of our agency portraits.
• Brian: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard 

A book, movie, TV show or podcast you recently found inspiring.

• Gordy: Love is Blind on Netflix. It’s powerful and moving how people can find true love without ever seeing each other. Kidding, it’s absolutely hot garbage.
• Brian: How To With John Wilson on HBO. Sadly it just ended. The concept of a guy trying to give advice but ending up just exposing all his personal issues is brilliant.

Your favorite fictional character.

• Gordy: Billy Ray Valentine. A great rags-to-riches story.
• Brian: Louis Winthorpe III. Great riches-to-rags story.

Someone or something worth following in social media.

• Gordy: Chaparro Chuacheneger. I don’t fully understand what’s happening with most of it, but he makes me stop my thumbs every time. And his “We Will Rock You” is magical.
• Brian: Stewart Pidman, global chief thought leader at Quality Meats.

One of your favorite creative projects you’ve ever worked on. 

• Gordy: I’ll go with our inaugural Quality Meats project for The Wiener’s Circle, an infamous hole-in-the-wall hot dog stand that spews profanities at its drunk patrons. It was in the heart of the pandemic and they wanted to do something to stay relevant. So, we convinced them to launch “Facetime & Curbside Abuse” as a way to deliver a much-needed human experience in dark times. In a much different vein, the Samsung Olympics commercial we did featuring South Sudan’s first-ever Olympian was a pretty incredible experience.
• Brian: Hands down Playstation MLB 12 The Show, where we brought to life the Cubs winning the World Series. At the time, the Cubs were starting their rebuild that led to them finally winning the World Series in 2016 for the first time in 108 years, and apparently the team used footage of the ad to recruit some of the key players.

A recent project you’re proud of. 

• Gordy: The Huggies Alphabutt Book. It was a pretty intense feat putting together an entire children’s book in a few months. We had a diverse range of 26 illustrators portray a different baby butt shape for each letter A to Z. What started with a run of a couple thousand—with all proceeds going to their National Diaper Bank—turned into an actual publishing deal. So, it’s now available nationwide at bookstores and major retailers. It was pretty rewarding to create something that wasn’t just a piece of advertising, but a product people actually wanted that lives beyond the media buy.
• Brian: What he said, but also the “Baby Butts” song we made for the film that went along with the campaign. It’s just so intuitive that baby butts are what go inside of diapers, yet I don’t recall ever seeing any work in the category that talks about them that way. And I genuinely enjoy the song.

Someone else’s work that inspired you years ago. 

• Gordy: I was always a big fan of the Turbo Tax “Year of the You”  campaign from Wieden. It was really well-written, well-shot, human, smart, dumb, relatable and honest—all at the same time.

• Brian:  Monster’s “Stork” made me question my entire existence.

Someone else’s work you admired lately. 

• Gordy: I enjoyed Callen’s refresh campaign for Nickelodeon “We Make Fun.” I enjoy a kids-centric brand execution that speaks to the child in me. 
• Brian: I’m a sucker for (and highly jealous of) perfectly-crafted simple storytelling like iPhone’s “Detectives.”

Your main strength as a creative person.

• Gordy: Being “not smart.” We always start a project by looking at the product or category as laymen. So we can think of the smartest way to convince our own dumb brains to be like, “Oh yeah, that makes sense. I want that.” It’s being able to find the perfect intersection of smart and dumb. 
• Brian: We care a lot about every piece of work and try to elevate them as much as humanly possible.

Your biggest weakness.

• Gordy: Being “not smart.”
• Brian: Caring a little too much.

What you’d be doing if you weren’t in advertising.

• Gordy: A pan flutist. No no no, I kid, I don’t have that talent. Feel like I might be decent on the client-side for some reason though.
• Brian: I’d like to say music or theater in some capacity. But realistically, probably performing at children’s birthdays and nursing homes.