Have you ever been in a room where someone dropped the mic so hard that everyone had to go home for a nap? That’s what happened when Aaron Starkman, Global Chief Creative Officer at Rethink, put this one-liner on screen at the Ad Age Small Agency Conference just 13 days ago. But who’s counting?
“Only human beings can do what no human being has done before.”
In an industry terrified of AI, shrinking budgets, and being eaten alive by holdcos with proprietary tools, the collective hot sigh of relief in the room may have ripped a hole in the ozone over Toronto. Too much? Okay.
This core belief is why Rethink’s work makes us all so jealous.
And trust me, if you don’t know the name, you definitely know the work.
Remember the pandemic-era Heinz Ketchup puzzle with 570 identical red pieces? Heinz ketchup moves slowly out of the bottle, so why not make the world’s slowest puzzle? What began as a limited social giveaway turned into a product available in every Walmart. Goosebumps, honestly.
Or the IKEA “U up?” DM campaign deployed in the middle of the night, where sleepless followers who responded got 15% off a mattress? That booty call spiked mattress sales by 36% – an incredible feat considering most of IKEA’s audience didn’t even know they sold mattresses. Double win.
How about the Coors Light “Lights Out” campaign, where Shohei Ohtani’s foul ball hit an OOH board so hard it left a black square. The brand responded with limited-edition cans, ultimately leading to Coors Light’s first-ever product release in Japan due to insatiable demand.
Did you click all of my links? You’re going to wish you did.
All three campaigns are masterclasses in moving quickly and outrageous client trust. So how are they able to pull off these Cannes Lion-winning ideas overnight? It’s not waiting for a brief, or months of strategy work, or six creative territories, or endless revisions on a script.
Here’s Rethink’s formula for lighting the world on fire:
Take something relevant in the world + something ownable to a brand > Press go > Then grow.
According to Starkman, relevant and ownable ideas rooted in culture are always on-strategy. The secret is to hatch an idea that couldn’t have been done two years ago or two years from now. And that’s where AI gets its wires in a tangle. AI may have 100 years of ads to pull from, but it can’t react in real-time to create culturally relevant, ownable campaigns the way humans with diverse, lived experiences can. Hot sigh.
But let’s face it: AI’s not the biggest threat to truly original and groundbreaking work. It's ourselves. Culture moves fast. Our industry moves like a dinosaur waste deep in molasses. The best ideas are often born in response to culture, and suffocated by process, approvals, and fear.
You just need clients brave enough to try.
We know that’s easier said than done. Thankfully, Starkman shared his Relationship Accelerator™ – a full-day meeting that eliminates the inevitable “oOoOh noOoOo” meeting that typically happens early on when you question everything about the relationship. We all know it.
Here’s what happens in the accelerator meeting:
- Set conditions for shared success
- Align on goals and ambitions
- Define what needs to be true for the process to work
- Share pet peeves and preferences
Need examples? One CMO told Starkman, “Don’t go over my f***ing head like my last agency,” while Starkman shared classic Go, Then Grow roadblocks and his team’s need for no-meeting Mondays. Getting this all on the table early prevents headaches when your next big idea needs quick alignment.
The most important thing to agree on while creating at this level is adopting a “fail fast and fail forward” attitude. And, if you’re lucky, it’s more of a “crush it quick and scale like crazy” attitude.
Idea not connecting? Pull the plug and learn. Idea taking off? Pour gasoline on the fire. But you won’t know until you put it out there. The best creative side effect? There’s no time for that little voice of judgment to squash your idea. Starkman firmly believes that the magic happens when creatives are pressed for time. The signature piano line from the Halloween movies? Written by a non-composer who had just 12 hours to deliver the score.
So why shouldn’t the same thinking apply to culture-defining work? The speed of culture is our deadline. Because there’s nothing more embarrassing than being 48 hours late to a trend, amiright?
So next time cultural latches onto something – keep your brand benefits in mind. Is there something ownable there? Or next time you get a creative brief, start your ideation thinking about Friday nights with friends instead of asking AI for a first-pass. Is there something insightful hiding between the jokes and banter?
In the end, driving Cannes-worthy results only happens when you move at the speed of culture – not molasses. And now that Starkman’s secret formula is out there, we can all put Cannes 2026 in our crosshairs.
Bring your best ideas – you know we will.
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