Chief of Creative
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Chief of Creative
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Let's Talk
Maya CheungMaya Cheung

Creative Strategist
& Direct Response
Idea Nerd

📍 START HERE: In [X] seconds, who I am & why I'm the creative strategist you're looking for 👇

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View Case StudiesGet in Touch

Andromeda hates to see me coming, but your bottom line will love it. I build psychology-driven creative that outsmarts ad fatigue, scales full-funnel conversions, and keeps CAC in check.

Case Studies

How I Think, Strategize, & Scale

Toggle between the 3 tabs within each case study to see how I turn customer mining and market research into scalable creative assets.

Travel Tech & ConnectivityCase Study #1

Largest eSIM Marketplace

Static and video ad concepts I'd run to improve win rate at the comparison stage and close a large activation gap currently unaddressed by paid.

How I Turn Research Into a Testing Plan 👇

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The Gap & Opportunity

Airalo is the largest eSIM marketplace in the world, yet its paid creative still explains what an eSIM is, in a category projected to grow 440% by 2028 and where independent reviewers are now ranking competitors like Saily ahead of Airalo for exactly the travelers it should be winning: first-timers and short-trip users. There's also a large activation gap unaddressed by paid: for nearly a quarter of reviewers, the setup process itself (QR codes, APN settings, carrier menus) reads as more technical than expected, and a real share of them just give up, concluding it's not something they can do rather than a step they're one tap away from finishing. I believe closing both gaps moves two numbers that matter most here: win rate at the comparison stage, and completed-activation rate among first-time buyers — and every concept in this case study is built to test exactly that.

Here's an ad that I'd use to increase completed-activation rate among first-time buyers:

2 Minute Timer Set-Up Proof — App Demo

Concept Idea: This persona needs proof before departure to convert.

Angle: The "Secret Weapon" Inside a Lifestyle Moment storyline

Format: A no-cuts set-up demo, with a timer running in the background.

Persona + Awareness Level: Anxious First-Timer, Solution-aware

Here's the research behind the concept and how I'd test it. 👇

(You can read the full brief for this concept in the next tab, “Briefs,” and see a mock-up of the finished creative in the following tab “The Creative.”)

Kitchenware & Home ToolsCase Study #2

Rolling Knife Sharpener

Static and video ad concepts I'd run to increase purchase conversion among stalled, almost-sold buyers.

📍 How I Scale a Winning Format 👇

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The Gap & Opportunity

Knife sharpener shopping involves real consideration: safety, protecting an investment already made, and a small learning curve — so buyers actually want proof before they trust it. Tumbler is the only brand in the category using the BESS machine for professional-grade sharpness testing in its ads, and its best-performing concepts already put that proof in terms anyone understands. The opportunity here is: 1) to scale this visual proof format to address more pain points and 2) to speak more specifically to micro-personas in our biggest persona segment. Real customer sentiment showed pain points driving purchase beyond dullness itself: loss aversion towards knife investment, and the safety risk of a blade that slips. We built toward personas the account wasn't speaking to yet: The Family-Embarrassment Host and The Gift Buyer. And we pushed the BESS proof format further down-funnel, giving it a credible face and a real stake so it converts skeptical, almost-sold buyers, not just first-time viewers.

Here's an ad I'd use to increase new-customer conversion rate among Product Aware buyers who know knife sharpeners exist but haven't picked one:

Dull Knife Investment Loss Reveal

Concept Idea: This persona knows sharpeners exist but hasn't gone deep on the options, and doesn't yet trust themselves to sharpen their own knives without doing damage — they need to see the fix explained, not the category introduced from scratch.

Angle: Sunk-cost reveal — this is framed as protecting money already spent, not fixing a problem they know they have.

Format: A comparison demo, real dull-vs-sharp knife on the same food, full mechanism walkthrough to show exactly how Tumbler removes the risk that comes with sharpening it themselves.

Persona + Awareness Level: Convenience-First Home Cook (Product Aware micro-segment)

Here's the research behind the concept and how I'd test it. 👇

(You can read the full brief for this concept in the next tab, “Briefs.”)

My Process

My Feedback-to-Revenue Loop

Every creative decision is backed by the consumer’s behavior and your ad account data.

  1. 1. Research — know the customer and the product before moving to ideation: reputation + market analysis, customer review mining, creative audit, competitor analysis.
  2. 2. Ideation — come in with growth targets, leave with testable ad concepts: product facts, idea, and customer feed into pain or desire; persona, messaging angle, and awareness level + conversion arc position feed into proof and/or promise; then style/format; then curiosity, constraints, and/or conditions; then hook/headline and hypothesis + mechanism; resulting in ad concept(s).
  3. 3. Briefing — turn the approved ad concepts into something a creator or designer can execute: script and brief, delivered as the creator brief + handoff communication.
  4. 4. Content creation — overseeing feedback loops and production, making sure the concept comes to life as intended.
  5. 5. QA — every asset gets checked against the original concept and the goal; if edits are needed they're made, if not it ships. Output: assets for launch.
  6. 6. Launch — media buyer handoff; ad named per naming convention, then launched.
  7. 7. Analysis + iteration — what did we learn and what are we testing next: close the loop, diagnose or capitalize. Results inform the next hypothesis back in ideation.
Tools I Use

Motion (+ Runneth), Meta Ads Manager, Foreplay, TrendTracker, Pipi Ads, TikTok Ads, Figma, Notion, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Gemini, Gamma

Your burning questions

The Unfiltered FAQ

Here are upfront answers to what you're actually wondering before we talk shop.

My Services

Where I Add Value

🔍

Research-to-Testing Translation

I turn scattered customer reviews and competitor noise into a priority-ranked list of concepts actually worth testing. That means less time and budget spent guessing, and a creative pipeline that's grounded in what your specific audience needs to convert.

📝

Brief & Creative Direction

I remove the guesswork between strategy and execution, so creators and editors build the right thing the first time. Fewer rounds of revisions means faster turnaround from idea to finished asset, and creative that actually reflects the strategy behind it.

📈

Performance Diagnosis

I'd catch declining ads before they've burned real budget, not after. Every account I work on gets a standing early-warning system, meaning less wasted spend and faster, more confident calls on what to fix versus what to kill.

🚀

Winner Capitalization

When something takes off, I'd have a repeatable way to get more out of it instead of letting it plateau or fade. That's the difference between one lucky ad and a lasting growth lever the whole account benefits from.

💻

AI-Powered Process Building

I'm not someone who says they “use AI,” and really it's just them yapping with Claude all day. I build systems with AI: repeatable, documented workflows that make the whole creative operation “Better, Faster, Stronger,” in the words of Daft Punk circa 2001.

About Me

Not coming from a cookie-cutter media agency is what makes me lethal at creative strategy (respectfully).

I came up through startup accelerators, tech PR, and ghostwriting for global execs. Here’s how that background translates into printing winning angles for paid media accounts:

Maya at a Grid110 founder showcase
Maya interviewing a founder on camera
Maya with collaborators at an evening event
  • 2021–2025: Startup Accelerator EraSpent four years at Grid110 advising 300+ founders on GTM, positioning, and growth. The result? Portfolio companies collectively raised $130M+. This is where I learned how to diagnose what a customer actually buys vs. what the product does.
  • 2025: Silicon Valley Pressure CookerMoved into tech PR at VSC. Handled high-stakes copy for massive tech moments—including launching the $93M-backed Cognichip out of stealth and leading press strategy through Windsurf's (formerly Codeium) multi-billion-dollar acquisition saga with OpenAI, Google, and Cognition.
  • 2025 (Q3): Going Full-Time FreelanceShifted into organic growth and executive positioning. Ghostwrote for the CEO of a global staffing firm (driving 5x audience growth and doubling inbound leads) while building automated marketing systems for a 6-figure personal brand running a 7-figure digital course.
  • 2026: Stepping Fully Into Performance CreativeDecided to deploy that entire stack where it has the highest immediate ROI: performance marketing. I made the jump into creative strategy because I am genuinely obsessed with the leverage it creates. (And because I physically cannot turn off the part of my brain that turns mundane daily moments into high-converting ad angles.)
  • 2021–Present: Asynchronous Collaboration ProI've been working 100% remotely since graduating university. Shoutout to my fellow covid grads. Worked across 40+ countries, enjoying early morning runs (one of my fav on-the-go hobbies) from Barcelona to Tokyo. Real ones know operating seamlessly across time zones is a time-management and process flex, not a red flag.

So no, I don't come from a “traditional” paid advertising background, but the fact that you scrolled all the way down here proves why that's an asset. Because let's be honest: avoiding creative fatigue requires thinking outside the corporate safety-demo box.

You want ads that actually interrupt a scroll and convert. So you need someone whose brain has been trained to write outside of the template and optimize the full customer journey. To get in contact with someone like that, scroll to the next section.

Get in Touch

Put a Direct Response Weapon on Your Roster

Get in Touch

Put a Direct
Response
Weapon on
Your Roster

Maya Cheung, freelance creative strategist
maya@chiefofcreative.com

Okay, so you made it all the way down here. Either you're lost, or you're ready to turn raw customer psychology into scalable paid media assets that will print predictable revenue.

If it's the latter, click the button below to send me an email with subject line “AD AUDIT” and:

  • Your website or brand link
  • Your current monthly ad spend
  • The #1 creative bottleneck keeping you up at night

We'll spend 20 minutes dissecting your current ad account, pointing out the exact messaging gaps costing you performance, and seeing if my creative strategy process aligns with your growth targets.

Not looking for an audit? Hiring for a specific role, fractional mandate, or just want to nerd out on direct response? Drop me a line directly at the email below. I'm chronically at inbox zero.

Get an Ad Auditmaya@chiefofcreative.com
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Testimonials

Let Me Pull Up the Receipts

Feedback from the founders I've worked with.

Client email praising Maya's detailed handoff and strategic eye
Client email asking to hire Maya after reviewing her ad concepts
LinkedIn recommendation from Angelica Heredia, founder of Mujer on the Move

read more testimonials on LinkedIn

Career Highlights
300+
unique copy pieces produced
→ I've written and tested hooks and angles across tweets, email newsletters, press releases, and executive comms. I know the psychology behind grabbing attention & stopping the scroll.
5x
audience growth ghostwriting on LinkedIn for 7-fig CEOs
→ Ghostwriting at scale taught me how to nail someone's voice fast. That same muscle is what allows my ad copy to land for every persona under the sun.
$145M
raised by founders advised
→ I understand how growth-stage founders think about CAC and payback. Every concept I pitch clearly ties back to the metrics they're chasing.
5+
years building brand authority in organic social
→ Years in organic taught me what makes an audience stop, trust, and engage. I use that intel to make paid creative feel native instead of like an ad.