How I Went from Spending $500M on Ads to an Agent of Ad Industry Disruption
Ad Agencies are Big, Expensive, Slow. And they don't make the work! Why are CMOs still using traditional agencies?
"Wait. The agency doesn't make the ads?"
That was me in 2009, sitting across from my boss, the CMO at L.L.Bean, about to oversee my first television commercial shoot. I had just moved from Boston to Maine to run advertising and e-marketing for Bean. My entire career, until then, was exclusively digital marketing, where everything is built in-house with designers and coders. No shoot required.
What I saw on my first TV ad shoot blew my mind…and throughout my two decades in the industry, I still can’t make it make sense.
What I learned next would eventually save my clients millions of dollars and prove-out a new way for brands to go-to-market. Without the agency.
The $500 Million Wake-Up Call
By the time I became Director of Advertising for Microsoft Windows, I was managing hundred-million-dollar plus annual ad and media budgets. For the last big Windows launch we spent over half-a-billion in global media. We worked with the "Agency of the Decade," as anointed by Ad Age. We had exclusive relationships with the most sought-after production companies in LA, New York, London, et al.
We went to market three times a year with campaigns for Holiday, Grads & Dads, and Back-to-School. And every single campaign followed the same broken playbook:
3-4 months from concept to air
$4-6 million in production fees per campaign + agency fees
100+ people on set to shoot a 30-second spot
Endless layers of account managers, creatives, and strategists resulting in mind-numbing bureaucracy and slowing down work
CYA Tactics like endless testing and focus groups that water-down the creative
The most absurd part? The agency, with all those people, doesn’t make the ads. The production company does.
Then the post company edits them, the VFX company finishes them, the media agency traffics them to air.
The agency that concepted the work becomes a shepherd and middle-man from production to on-air.
We were paying millions for the world's most expensive game of telephone.
The Accidental Experiment
Frustrated by our inability to respond quickly to competitors (looking at you, Apple Siri campaign), I started working with smaller, more nimble vendors for digital video content.
One day, I brought a boutique agency into our Redmond conference room and said: "We have three ads we want to make. Here are the features, benefits, and our campaign concept."
They said: "Okay. Let's do it."
No focus groups. No strategy decks. No around-the-world testing tour.
We shot with Broken Lizard (yes, the Super Troopers guys). The three spots cost less than one spot with our big agency. When we tested them head-to-head, our Broken Lizard spots outperformed the big agency work across every metric.
I thought we had reinvented advertising at Microsoft. But it was not to be.
The $1.25 Million One-Commercial Wake-Up Call
Fast forward to my next role as VP of Advertising at Redfin. On my first day, I inherited a television commercial already in production:
$750K agency fee (for one ad)
$750K production cost
Traditional agency/production model
When I presented our measurement plan, the CEO asked: "Why do we need all this? We'll know if it works if the phone rings."
That's when I realized: Most companies don't need the traditional agency model. They need great creative that drives results, delivered efficiently.
But changing an entire industry? That seemed impossible.
The Wild Gravity Moment
After leaving Redfin, I started Wild Gravity based on a few simple questions:
What if we combined agency services, production, post-production and VFX all under one roof?
What if we used small flat teams of seasoned industry pros rather than layered teams with varied experience?
What if we eliminated all the processes that don't directly result in better creative?
If we did all that would it be possible to create world-class work that rivals or bests any ad-agency, yet can be produced at lightning-speed for a fraction of the cost?
The answer was a resounding, yes!
Pressure Testing
Our first real test came when Amazon briefed us on creating five videos for Fire TV. Simple project, maybe $50K total.
Then the phone rang: "We want all five scenarios, across all five creative platforms."
That was 25 videos.
Another call: "We need localization for UK, Germany, France, and Japan."
125 videos. Six week timeline. Seven-figure project.
We scaled from 6 people to 60 in two days. Had two film crews and an animation crew running concurrently.
Delivered all 125 videos flawlessly. On time. On budget.
We weren't just a production company anymore. We had become something entirely new: a creative production company that could outdeliver agencies at a fraction of the cost and timeline.
Why I Wrote "Hacking Advertising"
Eight years later, Wild Gravity produces ads and content for Amazon, plus Microsoft, Hasbro, LEGO, Coca-Cola, and dozens of other major brands. We consistently beat out agencies over a thousand times our size because we deliver:
World-class creative that rivals the globe's top agencies
3-5x faster production timelines
50-75% cost savings versus traditional agency routes
Direct collaboration with creative and production teams
But here's what really drove me to write this book:
Every marketer I meet has the same hallway conversation: "Couldn't we do this easier with less people?"
The answer is absolutely yes. And the companies that figure this out first will have a massive competitive advantage.
What This Means To You
If you're a CMO or marketing executive: You're probably spending millions on an overcomplicated process that delivers watered-down creative months after you need it. This book shows you how to cut your ad production costs by 50-75% while dramatically improving quality and speed.
If you're an agency owner: Your clients are already having conversations about going direct to production. This book shows you how to transform your agency to a creative production company to add revenue while building vertical capabilities and increasing speed to market.
If you're a marketing or agency professional: Understanding this shift isn't just helpful, it's essential for your career advancement. The marketers who can navigate the new landscape will become invaluable to their organizations.
If you're an entrepreneur: Every dollar you waste on inefficient advertising production is a dollar not invested in growth. This book shows you how to create broadcast-quality creative on startup budgets.
The Revolution Is Already Here
The traditional agency model isn't in danger of being disrupted. It's being disrupted. I’m not the first one to think of this. Companies like ours are winning business every day from agencies that are 1,000x larger, charge 4x more and take 4x longer.
If you’re a brand, the question is whether you want to keep overpaying for agency services for watered-down creative, that takes longer.
I wrote "Hacking Advertising" because I believe brave marketers should know, there is a better way.
There is a way to create the best advertising of their careers, save millions, and actually enjoy the process.
The tools, tactics, and strategies are simple and they’re all in the book.
Hack advertising. Create more. Make more.
Jon Sneider is the founder of Wild Gravity and author of the bestselling book, "Hacking Advertising." After two decades managing advertising for brands like Microsoft, L.L.Bean, and Redfin, he is actively disrupting the industry by proving world-class creative can be produced faster, better, and cheaper than anyone thought possible.
Create more and make more. Get "Hacking Advertising" today.