Why make an ad when you can make an ad about making an ad? As one of the most self-aware ways to Spoof the Format, these campaigns step behind the camera, invade other commercials, invent ads that never existed and occasionally admit they are wasting your time.
Six Ways to Put an Ad Inside an Ad
- Make the Failed Ad the Idea
- Make the Inner Ad the Plot
- Cycle Through Counterfeit Ads
- Insert Yourself Into Other Ads
- Advertise the Ad That Does Not Exist
- Let the Ad Know It Is an Ad
The Recent One
1. Make the Failed Ad the Idea
Let something go wrong inside the fictional commercial, then turn that failure into the campaign audiences actually see.
Who Stole the Taco? —Taco Bueno, The Infinite Agency, July 2026, US
Taco Bueno begins filming a conventional commercial for its new Hot Honey Fried Chicken Taco. Before the product can receive its carefully staged close-up, someone on the crew steals it. The missing taco derails the fictional shoot and becomes the real commercial. Apparently, the product is too irresistible to survive its own advertisement.
Five More of the Best
2. Make the Inner Ad the Plot
Begin inside a fictional commercial, then let what happens during or after the shoot drive the larger story
The Chase for Carrera — TAG Heuer, DDB Paris, 2023
Ryan Gosling finishes filming a TAG Heuer commercial and decides to keep the Carrera watch. The film’s prop master, played by Vanessa Bayer, pursues him through an increasingly elaborate action sequence to recover it. The desire created inside the fictional advertisement becomes the plot of the real one.
