The Creative Graveyard: Resurrecting Great Ideas with Dead Ad Society

Here lies a bold, brilliant idea. Gone too soon, killed in its prime. It never got to see the light of day, but it will be remembered by the passionate creatives who fought for it. (upbeat music) Dead, cut, killed. These are the words of creative years when their ideas are rejected and sent to the depths of hell, or just to the skipped slides at the end of the deck. And while this seems like dramatic, almost militaristic language to use for something as un-serious as advertising, it does reflect a very real and emotional part of the job. - You know, nothing hurts more than losing an idea that you really love. - That's Chad, you'll meet him a little later, but he is certainly not alone in that feeling. And it's one we deal with almost every single day in the world of creative advertising. There is no shortage for causes of death for good ideas. And I say good ideas because the bad ones die for obvious reasons. A good idea can be struck down at any point in the process. Before it even reaches the client, it could be off-brief or impossible to produce. The celebrity written into it is un-gettable. Maybe the creative director just likes their own idea more. Clients can be serial idea killers too, whether it's due to budget constraints, internal politics, or a simple aversion to risk, a fear of stepping out of their data-driven comfort zone, or maybe they're nephew who works in a ice cream shop, just said that he didn't really get it. It's the natural but extremely frustrating way of life for creatives. But we all carry with us a mental graveyard filled with mausoleums for our best ideas. The ones that got away. The ones that we wish we had made. Oh, you should have seen the work that got killed that we really wanted to make. That's Caleb Doert, the managing partner of Hungryman. Hungryman is a global production company with some of the most notable commercial directors in the industry. And he's heard that line so many times from creatives that he decided to do something about it. The Dead Add Society is an event in its second year that gives rejected scripts a second chance. I mean, we're calling it an anti-award show. It's an award show for work that doesn't exist yet. Here's how it works. Anyone with a dead script that they still have love for can submit it to the show. The best ones are shortlisted and move on to the live event where they are read and performed by professional SAG actors. SAG is one of our sponsors, so we made a deal a second. That is an intentional choice to underline the importance of craft. The way it works is we have a troop of actors who perform all of the scripts and they sort of trade off roles. And one person is always reading the stage direction or screen direction. A panel of judges picks the best one, and that one gets produced in full scale by the Hungryman team. And trust me, you want your work produced by Hungryman. They've been around since 1997 and have truly become a powerhouse of commercial filmmaking. They are behind countless super bowl spots and iconic commercials, including Humpty for Geico. They've won all kinds of industry awards. They're nominated for two Emmys this year. One for Bateman versus Batman for State Farm, which was directed by their co-founder Brian Buckley. And another for Disney's holiday spot last year, which was called the Boy and the Octopus directed by Tyco YTT. If you want storytelling, craft, well done humor, they are the ones you want to go to. And it's clear how much they care about creativity. Because according to Caleb, no one on the team questioned doing something like dead ad society. Even though it would include spending a bunch of money on something that would not have an immediate return for them. Yeah, I mean, it's all very, very selfish on the part of Hungryman, you know, to just like, want to do something wild. And, you know, we're just, we're stupid people at Hungryman. We're idiots who just want to make good work. And even if that means us paying for it sometimes. Now, I mentioned this was the second year of dead ad society. So let me tell you about the first year and the winning zombie script. Creative's William Spencer and Mitchell Ratchet wrote a script in 2012 that they absolutely loved. But when a new CCO came in and sent the campaign in a totally different direction, their beloved idea was dead. More than a decade later, they submitted it to dead ad society. One, and then got to see the resurrection of their script. It came to life in a spot called dig. Are you burying these cool mocks? No. Hey, hey. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm burying the guy who's trying to steal my cool mocks. But I'm your husband. Yeah. That's what makes us so hard. You remember our vows? Are you so, dude, love me for eternity? No. I feel like there were other solutions. Don't take money as cool mocks. Oh. While the original spot was written for a large snack brand since it had been so long, and it was never even presented to the client, the team decided to offer it to the family-owned female founded cool mocks. So we took that as an opportunity to just like, to tweak it a little bit. And we ended up just finding a small brand and just gifting them with this spot. Cool mocks is a non-alcoholic beverage brand from Wisconsin. And their founder, Danielle Goss, went all in on the dead ad society process with total trust in the hunger-man team. And this was their first real commercial. This spot they ended up making is right up my alley. I love the simplicity, the dark humor, the dry delivery of the dialogue, the little girl peering through the window. And I thought, like, wait, I don't know, it would be really funny if like the kids watching from the window at the end. The aesthetic of it, like, is perfect. Little backyard on a weekend, pictures house, middle America, nothing out of the ordinary, but she's just like lowkey bearing her husband. This is L.J. Johnson, the hunger-man director who brought the dead ad back from the dead. When I first read it, I loved how simple the premise was and how dark the humor was in the spot. It had this absurdity to it that was really great. L.J. is also a writer and filmmaker, so she's no stranger to the rejection-fueled life of a creative, but dead ad society gave her a unique kind of creative freedom. She was able to approach the project with a filmmaker's sensibility, free from the typical constraints that come with a client-build project. It's interesting because there's truly an art to commercial filmmaking in the collaboration in that you have the filmmaker, and then you have the agency and then you have the client. And there's these three parties that are trying to work as one entity to create something great. For the dead ad, I was able to work a little bit more as a filmmaker and take some of those risks and do some of those things that maybe would have had to be pulled back or reimagined because of everyone's wants for the commercial and what it needs to be. And I just think instead of having a half idea, have a full idea and own it. Throughout my research for this episode, I kept coming back to these words we use, dead, killed. And I wondered if that kind of language exacerbated the pain and negativity involved with rejection. But LJ had an interesting way to look at it. - I don't think of killing an idea as negative as much as it's like part of the process to create something that's great. I think it takes on a negative connotation when there's nothing to replace it or there's not another idea being offered up or something isn't pushing through that's then killing that idea and making that idea like not as great or obsolete. - So maybe we should look at ideas dying more like a garden, where you pull the weeds to allow space for healthier, better growth. But sometimes pulling weeds is gonna hurt. - It hurts as bad as it does the 200th time as it does the first time. Hi, I'm Chad Brody. I am the co-founder and co-CCO of High Dive Avertising. I am gonna be a judge with dead ad society this year. - I'm very excited about it. What a cool opportunity to bring some of those ideas back to life. - When talking to Chad, I was reminded that the pain of rejection is actually a sign of passion. It shows that you care and have such a strong desire to make great work. - When you stop caring, I think there's a problem and then you might have lost a little bit of the passion. You know, if it doesn't sting, then like, you stop caring a little bit. I mean, maybe we get better of like shaking it off and coming back in hour the next day. It makes it so much more rewarding and fulfilling when you get it through when it's successful. - The dead ad society is a testament to that kind of passion. It's a celebration of creativity and the great ideas that get passed up for more mediocre or safe ones. - And my optimism about our industry is like, at some point analytics are gonna tell clients that the work needs to be better and more interesting. So if you're a creative who's tired of seeing your best work get killed, it's time to dig into your archives. Grab the scripts that you think deserve a second chance and submit them to the dead ad society. It's free, it's easy. Anyone, including freelancers, can upload up to three scripts at deadadsociety.com. And if you're an agency with a lot more work that you wanna submit, you can hit them up directly. - We close submissions on August 15th. Yeah, just get your submissions in and don't be afraid. Again, bold, funny, interesting, whatever thought-provoking ideas will win the day. - I think that's a judge. You just wanna, as you look at idea you wanna be like, okay, how did they not make that? - It's so brilliant, it's so smart. We have to go do this. I think it needs an element of that versus like, oh, that's funny, or that's interesting. You've got a really question like, in what world was this not seen all the way through? So maybe the industry isn't suffering from a lack of great ideas, but a lack of people brave enough to give those ideas the chance they deserve. And the fact that deadadsociety even exists shows how incredible some of those ideas can be. They can survive years of sitting in a dropbox folder untouched. They can talk about a completely different brand and still be memorable and entertaining. It's proof that the biggest creative risk we can take is letting a brilliant idea stay buried. (upbeat music)