Lost In Found: Bianca Guimaraes

What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?‍

Bianca Guimaraes on Ideas Without Fear

Bianca has been making some of the boldest, most talked-about work in advertising. As a Partner and Executive Creative Director at Mischief @ No Fixed Address, she’s behind culture-shaping ideas for Pizza Hut, Tubi, Heinz, and Sandy Hook Promise. But what sets her apart is the way she and her team approach creativity: without fear.

In this episode of Lost In Found, Bianca joins Catch+Release ECD Tom Christmann to talk about how inspiration is everywhere, why the best ideas start with culture, and why being unafraid is Mischief’s not-so-secret weapon.

From Resumés on Pizza Boxes to Viral Super Bowl Moments

When Pizza Hut wanted to connect with young job seekers, Mischief didn’t buy a billboard. They put résumés on pizza boxes. “We print the resumes of people who are looking for a job on the boxes of Pizza Hut pizzas, and then we send them to prospective employers in a way they can’t ignore,” Bianca explains. “It’s brilliant because you bait hiring managers with fresh, cheesy pizza—and you help real people get noticed.”

It’s the kind of fearless, culture-jacking idea that Mischief has become known for, whether it’s Tubi’s surprise Super Bowl takeover or Sandy Hook Promise’s chilling PSA work. The through-line? Staying relentlessly close to what people are actually talking about.

Finding Inspiration in Culture (and Algorithms)

For Bianca, inspiration isn’t just about keeping a bookmark folder of design blogs (though she used to do that, too). Today, she finds herself scrolling LinkedIn as much as Twitter or TikTok. “LinkedIn almost replaced a lot of that for me,” she says. “It became this network where you just scroll like you would Facebook or Instagram—but I’m seeing the work, the news, the conversations. It helps me stay aware of what’s going on in the industry.”

And while algorithms can be frustrating (she admits TikTok thought she was obsessed with makeover videos), she sees them as raw signals of where culture is moving. “Every client wants to reach Gen Z, so you have to pay attention to the trends, even if you’re not the target.”

Why Ideas Have to Start With Insight

Bianca is clear on one point: influencers or platforms don’t make the work, ideas do. “It’s always gotta be idea first,” she says. “The most powerful ways to use influencers are when the idea asks for one or can be enhanced by the right use of one. But if you’re just retrofitting an influencer into something, it doesn’t work. People pick up on that right away.”

For her, the “bulletproof” ideas are the ones rooted in strategy, cultural truths, or real product insights. They can look wild or crazy from the outside, but when you see the rigor behind them, they feel inevitable.

What Makes a Mischief Client

It takes a certain kind of client to go on that ride. “The perfect client is the one that really trusts the agency for what the agency is good at, but also knows their brand,” Bianca says. “We work very closely with our clients. We text, we react to ideas in real time. We all know the foundation, we trust each other, and we have the same goals.”

That trust is what lets Mischief live its mantra: what would you do if you weren’t afraid?

🎧 Listen to the full episode of Lost In Found wherever you get your podcasts, or stream it here.