Hey all, happy Fridizzle.
We took James sledding for the first time on MLK Day. Got him all geared up in his snowsuit—very retro, very Michelin Man energy—and met up with some friends who'd grabbed two sleds from the local Park Slope hardware store. The whole production. Prospect Park. Fresh snow. Picture-perfect parenting moment incoming.
So we're flying down this hill, Maddie and I taking turns holding him, genuinely thrilled to be giving our son this core childhood experience.
And James? Completely indifferent.
Just sitting there like a tiny bored emperor who's seen it all before. No excitement. No fear. Nothing. Just vibes.
Meanwhile, Linus is off-leash, losing his absolute mind. He's sprinting alongside the sled, trying to herd us down the hill like we're escaped livestock. Nipping at our ankles. Barking. Full cattle dog chaos mode.
So we've got a baby who couldn’t care less and a dog who cares way too much. Peak family outing.
Then, on Tuesday, the flu hit, and I've been horizontal ever since. But I'm vertical enough to write this, so let's get into it.
For months, I was the guy who'd defend GPT like it was a family member at Thanksgiving dinner. I had projects organized by client. Saved chats going back to the Paleolithic era. Muscle memory so deep I could navigate the interface blindfolded.
Then someone on the team made me try Claude for a brand voice project, and now I'm the annoying convert who won't shut up about it. My team has started a betting pool on how many times I mention Claude in a given meeting. (Current record: 14. I'm not proud.)
But here's the thing: I haven't deleted ChatGPT. Because they're both useful for very different reasons, and if you're making ads, knowing which tool to grab and when is the difference between "meh" creative and "holy shit, did AI actually make this?"
Let me break it down.
Good call—the Projects thing is honestly the killer feature and I barely touched it. Let me beef that section up:
Where Claude Makes Me Look Like I Know What I'm Doing
Projects Are the Whole Point
If you're using Claude without Projects, you're basically using a Ferrari to get groceries (or overcompensating in some way). The project structure is what makes Claude actually useful for ad work.
Here's how I set one up for a new client:
I create a project and dump everything into the knowledge base:
Brand guidelines (tone, voice, fonts, colors, do's and don'ts)
All of their customer reviews
Founder interviews or podcast transcripts
Competitor positioning (who they're NOT)
Existing ads that have worked
Product specs and key claims
Target persona documents
Now every single conversation in that project has access to all of it. I don't re-upload. I don't re-explain. I don't paste the same brief fourteen times. Claude just... knows.
The difference is insane. Instead of starting every prompt with "okay, so the brand is a premium skincare line targeting millennial women who care about clean ingredients, and the voice is confident but approachable, and we never use the word 'journey'..." I just say "write me 10 headlines for the new serum launch," and it already gets it.
Here's my project setup prompt that lives in the project:
INPUT VARIABLES:
Target Brand Name: [INSERT BRAND NAME HERE]
Target URL: [INSERT URL HERE]
Role: Act as a Senior Brand Strategist and Frontend Developer.
Objective: Create a comprehensive "Reverse-Engineered Brand Guideline" for the Target Brand Name defined above, using the Target URL as the primary source.
Instructions:
Step 1: The External "Asset Hunt" (Forensic Search)
Do not just visit the website. Use Google Search to find the "source of truth" for the Target Brand Name using these specific angles:
Design Credits: Search for "who designed [Target Brand Name] branding", "[Target Brand Name] design agency case study", or "[Target Brand Name] rebrand".
Public Assets: Search for "[Target Brand Name] brand guidelines pdf", "[Target Brand Name] press kit", or "[Target Brand Name] media kit".
Tech Specs: Search for "[Target Brand Name] font family", "[Target Brand Name] color hex codes", or "what font does [Target Brand Name] use".
Step 2: The On-Site "Vibe Check"
Visit the Target URL to analyze the Verbal and Visual identity:
Voice & Tone: Read the "About Us" and Hero Copy. Is it playful, serious, rebellious, or luxury? Give me 3 distinct adjectives.
Imagery: Describe the photography style (e.g., "grainy film," "high-contrast studio").
Shape Language: Are buttons rounded (pills) or sharp (squares)? Is the layout airy or dense?
Step 3: The Output (Brand DNA)
Combine the hard data (from Step 1) with your observations (from Step 2) into this JSON format. If you found exact fonts/colors in Step 1, list them. If not, make a "Best Professional Estimate" based on visual recognition.
json{
"brand_identity": {
"name": "Target Brand Name",
"tagline": "",
"design_agency": "Name or 'Unknown'",
"voice_adjectives": ["", "", ""]
},
"visual_system": {
"primary_font": "Exact Name (if found) or Best Guesses",
"secondary_font": "Exact Name (if found) or Best Guesses",
"primary_color_hex": "Hex Code (if found) or Best Guesses",
"accent_color_hex": "Hex Code (if found) or Best Guesses",
"imagery_style": "Description of photography/illustration",
"ui_shapes": "Description of buttons/borders"
}
}Why This Actually Matters for Ads
Think about how many times you brief the same information over and over when you're iterating on creative. New headline round? Re-explain the brand. Different ad format? Re-explain the brand. New team member jumps in? Re-explain the brand.
With a Claude Project, I brief once. Then, for the next three months of that engagement, every conversation picks up where the last one left off. The context compounds.
Brand Voice That Doesn't Sound Like Every Other Brand
This is where the project setup pays off. Feed Claude a founder's podcast transcript, and it will write headlines that actually sound like your brand. Not "generic DTC voice #47." Your actual brand.
GPT tends to average everything out. You give it premium skincare vibes, you get premium skincare clichés. Claude somehow maintains the weird specificity that makes copy feel human, but only if you've given it enough brand context to work with.
When I need headlines:
Write 10 headlines for [product] targeting [specific persona moment].
Angle: [specific emotional angle]
Format: [e.g., "Short—under 8 words. Punchy. No questions."]
Make them weird enough to stop a scroll but not so weird they confuse.Copy Iteration Without Starting From Scratch
You know when you're four rounds deep on landing page copy, and the client says, "Can we try a completely different angle?" With Claude, the context carries. With GPT, I'm re-uploading the brief and praying.
My iteration prompt:
That's close but not quite. The tone is right but it's too [specific problem].
Give me 5 more variations that keep the [what's working] but push harder on [what needs work].
Don't explain your thinking—just give me the copy.Where I Still Go Crawling Back to ChatGPT
Anything Involving Images
Need to extract text from a product shot? Reverse engineer what's happening in a competitor's ad? Generate a Midjourney prompt from a reference image? GPT wins, and it's not close.
Claude looks at an image like my dog looks at a Rubik's cube: interested, but ultimately confused.
Here's my image-to-prompt workflow:
Analyze this image and extract:
1. LIGHTING: Describe the exact lighting setup (direction, quality, color temperature, shadows)
2. ENVIRONMENT: Setting, textures, colors, props
3. COMPOSITION: Camera angle, framing, focal point
4. MOOD: Overall aesthetic and emotional tone
5. TECHNICAL: Estimated camera/lens, depth of field, any post-processing
Then write a Nano Banana prompt that would recreate this aesthetic with [MY PRODUCT] as the subject.Video Ad Analysis (Claude Is Useless Here)
This one hurts to admit, but if you're trying to analyze competitor video ads, Claude is about as helpful as a screen door on a submarine.
GPT can take an MP4, convert it to frames or GIF, and actually break down what's happening. Scene by scene. Hook analysis. Pacing. The whole thing. I use this constantly for reverse-engineering why a competitor's video is outperforming ours.
Claude? You upload a video, and it looks at you like you just asked it to do your taxes in interpretive dance.
Here's my video breakdown prompt for GPT:
Analyze this video ad frame by frame and give me:
1. HOOK (0-3 sec): What's the pattern interrupt? What stops the scroll?
2. STRUCTURE: Break down each scene/cut with timestamps
3. PACING: How long is each segment? Where does it speed up/slow down?
4. AUDIO STRATEGY: Music, voiceover, sound effects—what's doing the heavy lifting?
5. TEXT OVERLAYS: What copy appears and when?
6. CTA: How do they close? What's the ask?
7. WHY IT WORKS: What's the one thing that makes this ad effective?
Then tell me how I could apply this structure to [MY PRODUCT/BRAND].And for quick competitive analysis:
Convert this video to a GIF of the first 3 seconds only.
Then tell me: if I saw this in my feed with sound off, would I stop scrolling? Why or why not?The Actual Workflow
Here's what I actually do now:
Task | Tool | Why |
|---|---|---|
Strategic concepting, brand voice, campaign messaging | Claude (with project) | Better context retention, less generic output |
Persona development | Claude | Deeper, less clichéd personas |
Persona development | Claude | Deeper, less clichéd personas |
Image analysis, visual reference work | ChatGPT | Actually understands images |
Video ad breakdowns and analysis | ChatGPT | Claude can't process video at all |
Migration Tip: If You're Still GPT-Only
Export your best GPT chats as CSVs, organize by client/vertical, and upload to Claude as project files. Boom: you've got all your historical context in Claude's better memory system.
I also keep a shared prompt doc for the team so no one has to reinvent the wheel every time they need a headline.
The Bottom Line
It's not "Claude vs. ChatGPT." It's "Claude and ChatGPT, strategically deployed so you stop looking like you're using AI."
The people getting the best results aren't loyal to either tool. They're grabbing whichever one makes their specific task faster and better.
Now stop reading this and go set up your first Claude project. Migrate one client's brand context and see what happens.
Have a great weekend!
Will