Motion Creative Strategy Bootcamp
The 8-week live training and private community designed to help you succeed as a top creative strategist.
Your secret Motion bonus
Motion’s AI-powered creative analytics helps you know what’s working, why it’s working, and the exact ads to make next.
While none of the advice in this course requires a Motion subscription, use the special link below to activate a free 60 day trial.
How Motion’s creative analytics tool will help you during this course:
- Understand why ads work including diving deep into hooks, messaging angles, and personas
- Use AI to hunt down competitor ads, trending visual formats, and valuable intel you can turn into new winning ad ideas
- Get hands-on experience with Motion, a tool that many creative strategist job descriptions list as a must-know tool
Syllabus
🚨 All classes happen at 1 PM EST on Tuesdays. After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class with the link sent to your email and calendar.
If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the replays. Recordings will be available 24 hours after the live class. Watch the replays with the links sent to your email and calendar.
Certification requirements:
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Attend 5 or more live classes or watch the replays. Attendance is tracked via the email you signed up with. Watching the replay counts the same as attending the live class and is tracked the same. You must watch at least 60 minutes of the class for it to count as attendance.
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Get at least 70% on the final certification exam. This will be sent at the end of the course and is based on the content taught in the live classes.
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Live office hours, group coaching calls, and homework assignments are encouraged but not required to earn your certification.
Week 1 - What is Creative Strategy?
This week is about learning what a creative strategist really is and the core skills you need to master.
- Meet the Motion team and your fellow students
- Overview of the Creative Strategy Bootcamp format
- How to run an effective creative diagnosis at any brand
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 1: live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework
- Homework will be shared at the end of the live class
- Post yours in #homework-week-1 (Slack) for review
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar. If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 1: The foundations of creative strategy and science of hooks with Evan Lee.
Join us for an intro to the course and community, how it runs, and a foundational look at what really makes ads perform. You will learn what creative strategy includes and the highest impact actions you can take first at any brand. We'll then dive deep into the science of hooks.
Weekly Group Coaching Session
Live group coaching on Thursday 1 PM EST (replay by Friday).
This week: "How I write hooks + group coaching."
Join us for our group coaching calls, where we chat about the content we learned at the live class. We begin with creative strategists sharing their personal techniques. Then we open it up for live reviews of your work.
You can submit your work in advance or volunteer live. All instructions and the calendar invite are in the Slack Community in #announcements.
Week 2 - Research your ad ideas
Week 2 is about getting your research process dialed and updating your skills with AI-first techniques.
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 2 live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework
- Homework will be shared at the end of the live class
- Post yours in #homework-week-2 (Slack) for review
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar.
If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 2: Psychology-based customer research methods with Sarah Levinger
90-min class on psychology-based customer research. This is an in-depth session that will teach you the latest research techniques, as finding insights is the foundation of good creative. This will cover AI-native creative strategy research tools, showing you techniques that can be used throughout the course as you make ads.
Weekly Group Coaching Session
Live group coaching on Thursday 1 PM EST (replay by Friday).
This week: "How I research ad ideas + group coaching."
Join us for our group coaching calls, where we chat about the content we learned at the live class. We begin with creative strategists sharing their personal techniques. Then we open it up for live reviews of your work.
You can submit your work in advance or volunteer live. All instructions and the calendar invite are in the Slack Community in #announcements.
Week 3 - Prioritize your ad ideas
Week 3 is about knowing what research insights to bet on, honing your ability to select ideas with high hit potential.
You'll then learn how to pressure test ideas and get a system for organizing all your research into your next creative bets.
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 3: live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework
- Homework will be shared at the end of the live class
- Share yours in #homework-week-3 (Slack)
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar.
If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 3: How to prioritize and pressure-test big creative bets with Dara Denney
By now, you've got a lot of ideas, hook formulas swirling around your head, and unique insights about your customers from research.
This is about deciding on your big swings, choosing which ideas are worth testing, using creative strategy decision trees, and running pressure tests before you invest too much time in production.
Weekly Group Coaching Session
Live group coaching on Thursday 1 PM EST (replay by Friday).
This week: "How I run a monthly creative retro + group coaching"
Naomi Peh Haeger, Creative Strategist at Spacegoods, will share her process for running their monthly creative retro meeting that helps them plan the next batch of ad production. Naomi will walk us through her process, showing how these meetings help them to better understand Spacegood's customers, what's working in ad creative, and what to make next.
Then we open it up for live reviews of your work. You can submit your work in advance or volunteer live. All instructions and the calendar invite are in the Slack Community in #announcements.
Week 4 - Make some ads!
Week four is about making AI your default ad production execution layer without losing human control.
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 4: live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework
- Homework will be shared at the end of the live class
- Share yours in #homework-week-4 (Slack)
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar.
If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 4: Building your AI creative process with Will Sartorius
Will does a live walkthrough of his process and the advanced ways he has learned how to use AI for creative that doesn't turn your ad account into a bunch of slop.
You'll get Will's refined prompt iteration loops for gaining more control over generative outputs.
Will's approach still involves human creativity. He uses AI to do a lot of the thinking work and then uses human control to do the last mile, where most of the differentiation and precision that makes a good ad happens.
You'll learn how to generate a static product ad, an animated GIF video ad, and how to generate production-ready b-roll.
Weekly Group Coaching Session
Live group coaching on Thursday 1 PM EST (replay by Friday).
This week: "How I write scripts, storyboards, and briefs + group coaching."
Join us for our group coaching calls, where we chat about the content we learned at the live class. We begin with creative strategists sharing their personal techniques. Then we open it up for live reviews of your work.
You can submit your work in advance or volunteer live. All instructions and the calendar invite are in the Slack Community in #announcements.
Week 5 - Analyze your ads
Week five is about going from guessing to knowing what creative works, why it worked or didn't work, and using AI-assisted analyses to guide your creative pipeline.
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 5: live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework
- Homework will be shared at the end of the live class
- Share in #homework-week-5 (Slack)
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar.
If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 5: Metrics, measurement, & AI-assisted creative analysis with Evan Lee
The final foundational piece: seeing if your creative ideas actually work! In this class, you'll learn how to conduct proper creative analyses, diagnose why creative worked or didn't work, and learn how to use creative insights to guide your weekly sprints.
This session prepares you for the next section in the course where you'll run a real creative sprint, launching ads, seeing if they work, and gathering learnings you will put into action in the following week.
Weekly Group Coaching Session
Live group coaching on Thursday 1 PM EST (replay by Friday).
This week: "How I use AI for analysis, research, and ideation."
Join us for a special live group coaching call where context engineers and creative strategists at Motion share their personal AI toolboxes and advanced techniques for making AI tools useful in creative strategy.
No theory here. Straight to the actual tools and use cases used by elite creative strategists at the bleeding edge of AI.
Week 6 - Sprint #1 - Iterate on your ads
Week six is about simulating how creative strategy actually works in the real world and a chance to practice your skills in a low-pressure environment.
This week, it's the Iteration Sprint. It's all about imperfect inputs, fast decisions, iteration under feedback, and learning from previous ads.
Theme: "Your first ad didn't work — now what?"
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 6: live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework
- Homework will be shared at the end of the live class
- Share in #homework-week-6 (Slack)
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar.
If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 6: Sprint #1 with Evan Lee and your creative strategy coaches
Evan will kick things off and break down the basics of how creative sprints work and give you the sprint assignment of the week. At this stage of the course, it's all about getting lots of creative reps and practicing real-world strategy skills in a low-pressure environment.
But what is theory without examples? Next, we'll hear from our creative strategy coaches.
They'll share "Winning Ad Stories," breaking down the iteration attempts and behind-the-scenes processes it takes to get a big winning concept.
Featuring Emily Spring, Creative Strategist at DROOL, Daniel Rivera, Creative Director at Harry's, and Jade Heritage, Growth Creative Lead at Calm.
Weekly Group Coaching Session
Live group coaching on Thursday 1 PM EST (replay by Friday).
This week: "How I set myself up for success in a new creative strategy role (in-house) and how I set myself up for success with a new client (agency side) + group coaching"
Join us for our group coaching call where Darcy Tennant, Lead Creative Strategist at Heights, will share how she has been setting herself up for success in her new creative strategy role.
In February, Darcy left her previous role at brand Flo (the world's #1 women's health app) and joined Heights (a science-backed supplement brand for your brain, body and gut) so you'll learn how she is researching her new customers, analyzing data to understand what's worked before with the brand, and how she approaches working at a new brand.
We will also feature a coach (will announce soon!) who will present the process from the agency side, showing how to set yourself up for success with a new client, the research, analyzing what's worked before in the creative, understanding a new industry and audience segment, and the processes you need to take to succeed.
Week 7 - Sprint #2 - Adapt winning ads into new formats
Week seven is all about adapting winners into multiple formats.
This week, it's the Scaling Sprint.
Theme: "This ad works — how do you scale it?"
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 7: live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework:
- Homework will be shared at the end of the live class
- Share in #homework-week-7
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar.
If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 7: Sprint #2 with Evan Lee and your creative strategy coaches
Evan will kick the week off and give you this week's sprint assignment. After that, we'll hear from our creative strategy coaches, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how they iterate ads at real brands.
Viti Videtta, Creative Strategist at Happy Mammoth, will share how his team makes fast improvements in production, delivering around 500 creatives a week. You'll then see how the process works at large agencies with Sophia Beauvoir, Senior Creative Strategist at Ready Set, walking us through her techniques. And Janae LeVander, Performance Creative at Caraway, will walk us through how to scale winning ideas with UGC creators.
Week 8 - Sprint #3 - Take a big swing!
Week eight is the capstone ad. Your best swing. Take everything you've learned and knock it out of the park.
This week, it's the Big Swing Sprint.
Theme: "Let's unlock a new audience with a big winning concept."
Curriculum
- Attend for Certification: Attend Week 8: live class or watch the recording
- Optional: Attend our live office hours for Q&A. Office hours immediately follow the live class, so just stay on after the live class ends
- Optional: Attend our weekly group coaching session on Thursdays at 1:00 PM EST. Link will be shared in the Slack Community.
Homework
- Produce a script + storyboard with a big swing idea. More instructions will be given at the end of the live class.
- Our coaches will try to review as many as possible
- Share in #homework-week-8 (Slack)
- Due Friday (Posting encouraged!)
Your Weekly Live Class
Live classes on Tuesdays 1 PM EST (replay by Wednesday). After the class ends, stick around for live office hours. Join each class via the link sent to your email and calendar. If you've missed past live classes, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar. Attendance is tracked via those links.
Week 8: Sprint #3 with Evan Lee and your creative strategy coaches
Evan will kick the week off and give you this week's sprint assignment. Then, Cate Wright, Director of Creative Strategy at Monks, will show you how the biggest career unlock you can do: learning how to make the data matter.
Cate will reveal the art of shaping a narrative and making your insights tell a story, using data and finding ways to present it when you have a client audience. This is presentation skills and zoomed-out views supported by data, which is a core skill you need to master as a creative strategist.
Week 9-10 - The Master's Series
These sessions are for pattern exposure, not homework. You'll get direct access to world-class operators. These are optional and not required for certification.
Our official coursework is over. But you can attend these incredible lectures while studying for the final certification exam and doing your capstone project.
Session 1: The viral ad playbook featuring Oren John
Oren is delivering a 90-minute workshop breaking down how to blend organic social trends into your ad creative concepts. He'll share his personal research workflows and give you an advanced look at how the best brands are weaving together organic social, paid media, and cultural moments into one playbook.
Join via the link sent to your email and calendar. If you miss the live class, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar.
Session 2: Lessons from scaling Baseball Lifestyle from 8 to 9 figures in 2025, featuring Bill Rom
Bill Rom is the co-founder at Baseball Lifestyle 101. He's helped to scale the brand from 5,000 Instagram followers to 1M+ across platforms and from a living room operation to 100+ employees. And in 2025, Baseball Lifestyle jumped from 8 to 9 figures in annual revenue.
Bill is your guide to the real growth levers. Organic social. True top of funnel. Profitable customer acquisition. Don't miss this chance to hear from a top 1% operator.
Join via the link sent to your email and calendar. If you miss the live class, you can watch the recording with the link sent to your email and calendar.
