The ugly ad they won't switch off

Last Friday our design team showed me a set of competitor ads.

Clean. Beautiful. The kind you'd screenshot and save.

Then our media team pulled the same brands from the Meta Ads Library.

Not the ones someone liked. The ones they've kept running.

They looked nothing alike.

That's the whole problem.

The deck was a collection of ads we admired.

The library showed us the ads those brands won't switch off.

Those are two very different lists.

Here's why.

A designer picks an ad the way you'd pick a restaurant for a date.

Nice lighting. Nice plates.

Now think about the kebab shop down the road at 2am.

Fluorescent lights. Menu photos faded orange.

And it's still the one with the queue.

Nobody's in there for the lighting.

They're in there because it works.

Some of the long-runners were plain. A few were honestly ugly.

But a brand doesn't keep running an ad because it's pretty.

It keeps running it because it keeps doing its job.

And the job was never to look good in a deck. It's to stop the right person and get them to tap.

A deck rewards what looks good on a big screen in a meeting room.

The feed rewards what stops a thumb on a phone.

An ad that's still running weeks later is a brand voting with its feet.

That vote is worth more than anyone's opinion in the room, mine included.

When you build your creative from the ads you admire, you're copying taste.

When you build it from the ads a competitor keeps running, you're copying evidence.

I'll take evidence.

So that's what we're bringing to our next creative meeting.

Not a mood board. The ads that are still running, side by side with the ones we liked.

I expect it to be an uncomfortable conversation.

Good. That's usually where the next winner comes from.

I don't think pretty ads are bad. Some of them work.

But "I like it" was never the test.

The test is whether it's still live.

The Ads Library is free. Anyone can open it.

If your creative team is pulling references this week, ask them one question.

Did you pick these because they look good, or because someone's still running them?

Hit reply and tell me which competitor you keep comparing yourself to.

— Eddie