What happens if the ad admits it is an ad?

Getting to an idea worth fighting for rarely begins from an obvious starting point. Inspired by former Wieden+Kennedy Creative Director Jason Bagley, this series uses provocative questions to mine the Big Ideas That Work Engines for repeatable creative tactics that can help answer them.

This time, we’re asking:

What happens if the ad admits it is an ad?

Here are six campaigns that probably weren't thought of by asking this question and a few others, but they could have been...

1. Say Exactly What the Audience Is Watching
2. Let the Spokespeople Admit They Were Paid
3. Reveal the Fakery Before It Can Deceive Anyone
4. Turn Making the Ad Into the Ad
5. Side With the Person Who Wants to Skip You
6. Hold a Mirror Up to Advertising Clichés

1. Say Exactly What the Audience Is Watching

Name the commercial transaction instead of disguising it, then turn the admission into the reason people keep watching.

This Is a Beats Ad — Beats by Dre, Rosewood Creative Los Angeles, 2022

Sponsored creator content often attempts to preserve the appearance of spontaneity. The product is carefully positioned inside an apparently casual piece of content, while the creator performs an enthusiasm everyone understands has been paid for.

Beats removed the pretence. TikTok creators exaggerated the familiar mechanics of influencer advertising: awkward product holds, forced transitions, unnaturally prominent branding and enthusiasm pitched several levels beyond human plausibility. Throughout the performances, they openly announced: “This is a Beats ad.”

The confession did not make the work feel less branded. It made the branding the joke. By saying exactly what the audience was already thinking, Beats demonstrated that it understood the platform, the format and the scepticism surrounding both. The ad became more watchable because it stopped pretending not to be one.

The question that could have produced it:

What if we openly announced every advertising trick while performing it?

The creative move: Make the Ad Format the Joke, from the Parody Engine → Spoof the Format