The Unicorn Rule: Why The Lad Collective Publishes 15,000 Ads to Find 10 That Work | #639

Went live with Mark Broadhead from The Lad Collective this week. Mark runs the Meta engine at one of Australia's fastest-growing bedding brands, and his crew has shipped around 15,000 ads in four years to find the 10 that turned into genuine unicorns. We got into how he builds and tests creative at that volume, why he doesn't study other bedding brands, and where AI is actually pulling its weight in production.

Key moments

11:50 Why Mark doesn't study other bedding brands for inspiration
18:08 205 live ads, 260 campaigns, and the move toward 1,000 live creatives
36:20 Using content pillars to scale one idea across many formats
40:39 The customer-driven UGC pipeline that feeds itself
41:18 Why Mark will put almost any piece of content into the ad account
42:30 Working with Shelley Craft and balancing the lo-fi brand
44:48 The Robert Irwin partnership and what it means for the US push
46:46 The role of AI in ad production with Higgsfield and Kive

What was your biggest takeaway from this episode?