Brian McHale

A passionate, hands-on leader, as the CEO and Owner of Brandience, Brian strongly believes that any true partnership is built on shared values, open dialogue, and a strong desire to push for new, innovative solutions. This philosophy drives his work with clients to reach branding and advertising objectives. With experience spanning a variety of industries, geographies, and demographics, Brian leads his team in executing creative campaigns.

Over the course of Brian’s career, he has partnered with many brands, using his eagerness to understand their goals and objectives to learn, explore, and test ways to achieve the best marketing solutions. As someone who always has his eye on the next possible opportunity to grow, Brian has honed his skills in helping regional brands grow to become super-regional or national brands. This growth can be attributed to Brian’s intuition and ability to know when brands should expand into new markets, advertising locations, and launch new products.

Brian has built an award-winning agency over two decades focused on long-term client relationships and strategic creative. Prior to Brandience, he was President and Partner at Empower Media Marketing, Cincinnati’s largest media agency. His mantra of five rules to stay nimble drives him: only measure what’s meaningful, communicate openly but judiciously, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, be able to sprint when necessary, and be ready for what’s next.

He’s leveraged his expertise as a juror for the Houston American Marketing Association’s (AMA) Crystal Awards, the largest AMA recognition program in the U.S., leading a strategic planning workshop for the Cincinnati AMA and as a panelist at the Houston AMA Marketing Edge 2024 event discussing scaling businesses through skills-based hiring and artificial intelligence (AI), and most recently led an intense influencer elevation workshop on Generative AI at FoodFluence Berlin 2025.

His skills and successes have been recognized throughout his career, including Ad Age naming him a Media Maven and as a member of the prestigious Cincinnati Business Courier “40 Under 40.” Brian is deeply committed to the Cincinnati community, serving on the boards of Greater Cincinnati Sports Corporation, Cancer Support Community of Greater Cincinnati as well as non-profit business boards such as The Goering Center and the Cincinnati YPO. Brian has volunteered for a variety of organizations including the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Association for the Blind & Visually Impaired. Brian also serves on a number of privately held business boards. He is a Miami University of Ohio alumni.

About Brandience:

Brandience is a retail-minded advertising agency that blends bold creativity with data insights to deliver powerful results. With over 20 years in business, we’ve built a reputation for quickly getting to the heart of the challenge resulting in bigger, bolder ideas that connect with consumers. (So, we’ve got a strong left brain / right brain thing going on).

Specializing in restaurants, franchise, healthcare, and retail industries, Brandience applies proven retail marketing practices to unexpected places, bringing sharper strategy and stronger results to our partners.

Our 4-step process is in our name: Brand, Audience, Science, Experience. We tease-out truths that matter, dig for insights that resonate with consumers, and deliver experiences that inspire.

We are proud to be early adopters of human-centered Generative AI, using it as an essential tool to enhance creativity, improve efficiencies, and deliver even greater value to our clients. Brandience was among the first regional agencies to implement a formal AI use policy and provide our team with ongoing training to ensure ethical and effective GAI usage.

Discover what makes Brandience different at https://brandience.com.