Our big idea: creative agency Dirty Jack

Hi Matt! What's your elevator pitch? 

Your paid ads are probably really boring, and it’s costing you.

We help brands gain market share via some of the riskiest comedic video ads on the planet! 

‍What does the market need it?

Most creative agencies seem to think audiences have the intellectual capacity of goldfish, and are terrified of losing their clients over bold decisions. This sucks. 

As a result, the majority of the content being produced for brands exists in echochamber of mediocrity, making paid ads a very competitive landscape.

Inspired by the likes of Old Spice & Liquid Death water, Dirty Jack specialises in comedy to help brands beat ad fatigue. 

Where is the business today? 

From building the business in our bedrooms during lockdown, we’ve worked with dozens of international ecommerce brands & gained over 200 million views for our clients. We do a cosy 6 figures a year to make really silly jokes. Can’t complain! 

What made you think there was money in this?

I don’t think we had any idea how much money we could make from professionally writing toilet jokes for clients.

We naively put together a really basic landing page that showcased our comedic philosophy, and sent a few test emails to gauge interest over a weekend, from which we bagged our first client (A couple of guys selling testicle trimmers on the internet) - and before we knew it we had a semi functioning business.

What's your biggest strength?‍

We’re willing to do pretty much anything to make audiences laugh.

Recently we made a seven minute Facebook ad for our client ‘Air Landline’, that included a private jet, a sex scene, a flame thrower, and a lot of bird poo.

It’s one of our highest engaged videos. It gets hundreds of positive comments every week. Air Landline 5X’d their click through rates.

None of it really makes any sense on paper, but we have zero regard for what other agencies consider appropriate.

‍What is the secret to making the business work?

The only thing that matters is the quality of the work we produce. It’s kind of simple in that regard. We’re incredibly protective over the quality of our portfolio. I don’t think other agencies take this seriously enough.

Each project is an opportunity to stretch our capabilities. We’d much rather risk screwing up a crazy idea and having to re-shoot, than playing it safe. 

Don’t get me wrong, we’re always experimenting with our systems, pricing and marketing - but our clients come to us to take creative risks, and the extent to which we do that is how we measure our success. 

How do you market the company?

It’s kind of boring, but constant outreach. A lot of emails! 

What funding do you have? Is it enough?

Our friend Pete buys us a kebab for morale now and then, but that’s about it. 

Tell us about the business model

Again, we keep it simple! Agencies have a terrible habit of scaling into fancy offices with beanbags and seventeen employees who don’t really do too much.

We made a very intentional decision early on to not do that. Dirty Jack exists as a trio of filmmakers. We work on every project ourselves. We’re hands on.It keeps us involved in the creative process, and our margins stay high. 

Are there any technologies you find useful?

Storydocs is a great AI pitch deck software thing. It’s easy to use, and really helped us get the attention of bigger brands. We’re great at videos, but any fiddly design work makes us want to smash our heads off things aggressively. 

What is the future vision?

AI is clearly about to make video and image a cheap commodity. It’s terrifying, but kind of exciting for us. It’s going to force advertisers to get creative. Shiny product images aren’t going to cut it anymore. 

We’ll be here, like we always are, continuing to push the creative limits of what modern adverts look like.

A specific goal: we’d love to put our spin on a car advert. They’re usually so pretentious. We could really cause some trouble in that space.