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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

hungryman Revives “Dead” Scripts with First Completed Spot from Dead Ad Society with KUL MOCKS

LOS ANGELES, CA — June 2025 — Global production company hungryman has announced the release of the first completed spot born out of its creative platform Dead Ad Society, a movement that resurrects the best ad ideas that never got made. Directed by LJ Johnson, the spot is for KUL MOCKS, a non-alcoholic beverage brand, and marks the culmination of the inaugural Dead Ad Society Awards held in New York last fall.

With the release of the first completed spot, Dead Ad Society has also officially opened submissions for Year Two, set for Los Angeles this September.

The inaugural winning spot spent over a decade buried before earning its revival. In 2012, freelance ad creatives William Spencer and Mitchell Ratchik wrote a dark comedy script they couldn’t stop laughing at. It was part of a larger campaign they'd built—sharp, weird, undeniably funny. But when a new CCO arrived and pushed for his own tagline, the campaign was shelved. Like so many others in advertising, the idea quietly died before it was ever truly realized.

“It happens all the time,” Ratchik said. “Good ideas die for dumb reasons—internal politics, leadership changes, fragile egos. You learn to expect it, unfortunately.”

But over the years, that particular script lingered in their minds — “the one that got away,” as Spencer puts it. Then, more than a decade later, he stumbled on a LinkedIn post, a call for entries from something called the Dead Ad Society. The platform offered a second chance to great ad ideas that never got made, with a jury of top agency creatives and directors selecting one script to bring to life.

Spencer was intrigued. So he called Ratchik, who he had continued to collaborate with over the years. They’d had countless spots killed. But they both immediately knew which script they wanted to submit.

“It was just sitting on a hard drive,” Ratchik said. “It still made us laugh. It was simple and relatively easy to produce. That was enough.”

A few months later, the duo learned that their spot had been shortlisted. They were invited to attend the inaugural Dead Ad Society event, which took place last November in New York City. But this wasn’t a typical awards show.

“We called it an anti-award show,” said Caleb Dewart, managing partner of hungryman. “The venue was a bar, an open bar. It’s supposed to be wild. The scripts were performed live — a glorified table read. It was messy, imperfect, and that was the point. It felt honest.”

Actors performed live readings of each finalist script before a packed crowd. The atmosphere was loud, raucous, and unpredictable, exactly the spirit Dead Ad Society set out to capture.

When the night ended, Spencer and Ratchik’s script was chosen as the winner. More than a decade after being shelved, their spot was finally going to get made.

At its core, the Dead Ad Society platform reflects hungryman’s longstanding ethos. Founded in 1997, hungryman has redefined commercial filmmaking for nearly three decades—earning multiple Academy Award nominations, Emmys, Cannes Lions, D&AD Pencils, and top honors from every major festival that matters. Known for pairing high-end craft with a distinctive point of view, hungryman has built its legacy on smart, emotive, and often hilarious work that resonates deeply and cuts through culture.

“Dead Ad Society started as a creative challenge,” Dewart explained. “It celebrates the unfiltered best creative ideas that never made it to production. That’s the heart of it.”

The winning spot was directed by hungryman’s LJ Johnson, who immediately connected with the script’s darkly comedic tone and the platform’s underlying ethos. “What Dead Ad Society does is remind everyone why we got into this industry in the first place,” Johnson said. “It’s about stories, creativity, ways of seeing the world that are different or offbeat—and watching that resonate with an audience.”

Even the client was a first-timer. KUL MOCKS, a family-owned, female-founded non-alcoholic beverage brand from Wisconsin, became the featured product in the spot — their first-ever large-scale production. For founder Danielle Goss Dead Ad Society offered an opportunity that would have otherwise been out of reach for an emerging brand.

“This whole world is new to me,” Goss said. “But once I saw the quality of the work from hungryman and LJ, I grounded myself in the concept and said: we’re all in.”

The spot was finished with help from a wide community of sponsors: Work Editorial handled the edit; Arc Creative provided VFX; Sonic Union provided the mix and audio finishing. Synapse and SAG contributed resources to help complete the project; all of the actors featured in the spot were SAG members, as well.

“We pitched top post houses on sponsoring this thing – not just the event, but finishing the winning spot,” Dewart said. “Sight unseen, they didn’t hesitate, they just said yes. That kind of enthusiasm makes everything else possible.”

“I was genuinely honoured that Work was invited to sponsor the event—it couldn’t be more up our street,” said Jane Dilworth, co-founder and president of Work Editorial. “We had the best time doing what we love, with the people who love it too,"

And while Dead Ad Society may feel unconventional, those involved see it as something the industry needs: a reset on creative risk, and a defense of craft. “The Dead Ad Society is a powerful reminder of just how much brilliance still exists in the ideas that don’t always get made,” Dilworth said. “And how exciting it is to see them resurface.”

“There’s not a lot of great work being made right now,” Dewart added. “This was a way — even a gestural way — to say creativity still matters.”

Johnson echoed the sentiment. “If more brands saw the value in taking creative risks — doing something a little weird, a little different, not just the similar tropes we're used to seeing in commercials — I think we’d see a lot more great work.”

For Spencer and Ratchik, it’s been a long journey—but one that reinforces why they fell in love with the business in the first place. “Dead Ad Society gave this thing a second life,” Spencer said. “But it also gave us a little hope for the industry, and for the next wave of creatives.”

“This reminded us that the craft still matters,” Ratchik added. “The real stuff—the writing, the ideas—that’s what lasts.”

Now, with the first spot fully produced and released, Dead Ad Society officially moves into its second year. Submissions are now open for Year Two, with the next show slated for September 18, 2025 at The Mint in Los Angeles, an iconic music venue. This year’s jury panel includes: Ashton Rose (GCD, 72andSunny), Azsa West (CCO, W&K), Felipe Ribeiro (CCO, W&K), Nick Ciffone (ECD, MAL), Guto Araki (CEO, Biite/Guto), Hobart Birmingham (GCD, RPA), Perrin Andersdon (GCD, RPA), Ryan Lehr (CCO, Deustch), Jason Sperling (CD, Innocean), Jason Karley (ECD, TBWA), Chad Broude (CCO, High Dive).

But with a new year, the mission for hungryman stays the same: champion great work that nearly slipped through the cracks, and prove that taking risks is still worth it.

“This is a selfish excuse to make something great,” Dewart said. “Hank Perlman and Bryan Buckley, who founded hungryman, have always said: ‘if you make good work, everything else falls into place.’ That’s the spirit of this. And hopefully, incrementally, very subtly, it changes the conversation around creativity.”