I write from that gap. I'm not a psychologist or a parenting coach. I'm a dad who reads the research after everyone finally falls asleep, then tries to do better the next morning.
ABOUT
Vitor Medrado: Author, Storyteller, and Dad in Panic
Dad in Panic is a fatherhood blog and a children's book brand. I'm Vitor Medrado, the father who makes it. I spent more than fifteen years writing advertising for some of the biggest brands in the world, then had a kid and realized I had no idea how to be the one thing I actually wanted to be good at.
What I’ve Done (and What I Do Now)
Before I wrote about fatherhood, I wrote for brands. Here is the short version of how the first job turned into the second.
Fifteen Years Writing for Global Brands
I have spent more than fifteen years in advertising, including senior creative roles at Ogilvy, DDB, and Publicis Brazil.
Some of that work picked up awards. On People at Work for the Women in Construction Institute, credited on Ads of the World, I was one of the creative directors. It won two Silver Effie Awards in 2024 and was a Cannes Lions finalist in Outdoor, and it swapped the old “Men at Work” signs for something the whole industry could stand under. The Bradesco firefly film, “Shine in Your Own Way,” was a finalist at D&AD and The One Show in 2020, and it is covered in Adobo Magazine’s spotlight on the campaign. Earlier in my career, a Stayfree campaign called My First Pad won a Silver Lion in the Direct category at Cannes in 2018.
Fifteen years of that teaches you how to make a stranger feel something in thirty seconds. The same trick works at bedtime, on a smaller and much tougher audience.
Why I Stepped Back From the Big Agencies
The more I leaned into being present at home, the less I could stomach the fourteen-hour days and the burnout I used to wear like a badge. So I stepped back from the big agencies. Not out of the craft, just out of the grind that was eating the hours I wanted for my family.
Stepping back bought me time, and I spend it on the two things I care about most. Being there for my kid, and writing children’s books that help other parents connect with theirs. The skills from fifteen years in advertising did not go anywhere. I still put them to work in creative strategy, and now in the books too.
So I started writing books that do in a bedtime what a good ad does in a commercial break. They make you feel something before you have time to defend against it.
The Children’s Books I Write Now
I write picture books for kids roughly four to eight years old, in English and Brazilian Portuguese. They look like children’s stories because they are. They also work on the adult reading them out loud.
The Boy Who Became an App is about attention, and what a screen quietly takes from a kid who only wants to be seen. The Little Star Who Landed in the Ocean is about change, belonging, and feeling lost in a new place, which is most of childhood and a fair bit of adulthood too.
Reading aloud does more than fill the time before sleep. In its 2024 policy statement, Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in the journal Pediatrics, shared reading from infancy is tied to stronger parent-child relationships and healthier social-emotional development. The story is the reason the kid sits still. The closeness is the point.
Both titles live in the Dad in Panic bookstore.
What Dad in Panic Is Really For
My purpose here is simple. Get dads talking to their kids, and to each other, about the stuff we were raised to swallow.
Talking about a father’s mental health should not feel like handing in your man card. It should feel like realizing that bottling it up was never strength in the first place.
The enemy was never screens or work or being tired. The enemy is the dad who is in the house but not in the room. I was raised by that quiet. I am trying to be louder. If some of you come with me, even better.
Other platforms you can find me:
Hit a nerve? Made you smile? Let me know.
Send an email to hello@dadinpanic.com, or just hit the button below.
The Panic Club
No spam. No tips you’ve already seen 500 times. Just dad-to-dad truth, stories that hit home, and the occasional well-timed swear word.
As Featured In
A curated sampling of the trade press that covered work I was part of during the advertising years. Receipts for the storytelling claim, in case you want them.
Ads of the World: People at Work, Women in Construction Institute
Ads of the World: Beat Your Best, Honda
Adobo Magazine: Bradesco, “Shine in Your Own Way” firefly film
AdLatina: Honda, “O que move você move a Honda”
AdLatina: Honda, “Não cai do céu”
LLatinSpots: Publicis Brasil, Women’s Day “Men Working” signs
LatinSpots: Publicis and Honda Motos, Motorcyclist’s Day film
LatinSpots: Publicis presents the Honda New City
LatinSpots: Honda Motos, 50 years documentary webseries
LatinSpots: “Coisas que mudam a vida” commercial
LatinSpots: interview, “Ganamos con clientes que ponen campañas en la calle”
UpdateOrDie: Publicis and Honda Motos interactive film
AdsSpot: Stayfree “DM” TV commercial
Blog do Adonis: Bradesco fireflies, “Vagalumes iluminam mais um Natal”
Acontecendo Aqui: Publicis announces six new creative hires
Acontecendo Aqui: Publicis for Honda Motos, “O que move você move Honda”
Fernando Vasconcelos: Honda and Publicis, fifth-generation New City
VoxNews: six new names in Publicis creative
VoxNews: Honda Motos, first campaign by Publicis
Janela Publicitária: Publicis for Honda, inspired by action films
