Fastvertising & Ryan Reynolds: ads people actually watch
Fastvertising is advertising made at the speed of culture — quick to ship, self-aware, and timed to what people are talking about right now. Ryan Reynolds and Maximum Effort turned it into a playbook. Here's how it works, and how any business can borrow it.
Most advertising is made for a world that no longer exists — a world where people sat through whatever was on and couldn't skip. That world is gone. Today there's a skip button on everything, and it's the most honest focus group in history. If your ad is boring, dishonest, or slow, it gets skipped in three seconds flat.
Fastvertising is the answer to that. It's advertising that respects the skip button instead of fearing it — ads that earn the watch by being quick, self-aware, and timed to the moment. And the person who turned it into a repeatable method is, improbably, an actor.
Who invented fastvertising? Ryan Reynolds and Maximum Effort
The term got its moment in 2019, when Ryan Reynolds and the creative company he co-founded with George Dewey — Maximum Effort — started making ads that moved faster than anything the industry was used to. Their whole philosophy runs on a constraint most agencies fear. As Reynolds has put it: "Too much money and too much time will murder creativity."
The other half of the method is honesty about the medium itself. Reynolds has described the approach as dropping the pretence: consumers know they're being marketed to, so the smart move is to lean into it rather than hide it. That's the same instinct behind everything we make — you can hear it in our marketing demo, which sounds like a person, not a press release.
The proof: two ads that built billion-dollar exits
This isn't a theory. It's a track record.
Aviation Gin vs. the "Peloton wife." In late 2019, a Peloton holiday ad went viral for the wrong reasons. Within days, Maximum Effort hired the same actress, shot a tongue-in-cheek Aviation Gin response, and released it while the internet was still arguing about the original. Reynolds has said the ad went from idea to finished in about 72 hours — unheard of in traditional advertising. Aviation Gin was acquired by Diageo in 2020 in a deal reported to be worth up to $610 million.
Too much money and too much time will murder creativity. — Ryan Reynolds, co-founder, Maximum Effort
Mint Mobile's deliberately cheap ads. Reynolds took a stake in Mint Mobile and fronted ads that looked intentionally low-budget — a phone, a voice, a joke about how unglamorous the whole thing was. That honesty was the pitch. In 2023, T-Mobile acquired Mint Mobile in a deal reported at around $1.35 billion. The lesson isn't "be a celebrity." It's that speed and self-awareness can carry a brand further than polish.
The problem: ads that pretend
The old model was slow and self-serious. Spend three months and a fortune. Hire a crew. Shoot a cinematic epic where a mysterious person walks through a field feeling emotions, and reveal your logo at the end. It's beautiful. It says nothing. And it took so long that the moment it was made for has already passed.
The skip button is a lie detector. It punishes ads that pretend to be more important than they are.
People don't hate ads. They hate pretending. They hate an ad that acts like it's a short film when everyone knows it's a commercial. The pretence is what makes them reach for skip.
The three rules of fastvertising
Fastvertising works because it does the opposite of the glossy epic. Three rules:
- Be self-aware. Admit you're an ad. Wink at the viewer. Nothing disarms a skeptical audience faster than an ad that's in on the joke.
- Be fast to ship. Make it this week, not this quarter. Speed lets you test ten ideas instead of betting everything on one, and the market tells you which one works.
- Be proof-backed. Don't claim you're the best — show the number, the review, the before-and-after. Proof is the one thing the skip button can't argue with.
The insight: attention is earned, not bought
The old logic said attention was something you purchased — enough impressions and eventually people had to see you. That's dead. You can pay to put an ad in front of someone, but you can't pay them to keep watching. The watch is earned in the first three seconds, or not at all.
That flips the whole job. Instead of asking "how do we look impressive," fastvertising asks "why would a real human choose not to skip this?" Usually the answer is: because it's funny, honest, fast, or useful. Often all four. You can see the tone we mean on our marketing demo — ads that sound like a person, not a press release.
What it looks like for a normal business
You don't need Ryan Reynolds or a Hollywood budget. Picture a local food brand with a glossy 60-second spot — drone shots, moody music, a slow logo reveal. It cost a small fortune and gets skipped by almost everyone who sees it.
The fastvertising version is a 12-second clip shot on a phone in an afternoon: the founder holding the product and saying, "Yeah, this is an ad — but it's genuinely good, and here's why." Self-aware, quick, human. It costs almost nothing, it ships this week, and because it respects the viewer's time and intelligence, it earns the watch. That's the whole trade: personality and speed in place of polish and delay.
Why speed keeps winning
Here's the compounding secret: because fastvertising is quick to make, you're never betting everything on one ad. You ship several, watch what lands, and pour budget into the winner. A studio that ships ten ads a month learns ten times faster than one that ships a masterpiece a quarter. And when it comes time to spend on paid placement, faster creative makes every dollar of your ad budget work harder.
Want ads people actually watch?
We make fast, self-aware, proof-backed advertising built for the skip-button era — shipped in days, not quarters, and tuned to what actually works.
Start a projectFrequently asked questions
What is fastvertising?
Fastvertising is advertising built for how people actually watch today: fast to produce (sometimes in under 24 hours), self-aware about being an ad, and timed to whatever culture is talking about right now. Popularised by Ryan Reynolds' agency Maximum Effort, it trades months of polish for speed, personality and cultural relevance.
Who is behind fastvertising and Ryan Reynolds' ads?
Maximum Effort, the creative company Ryan Reynolds co-founded with George Dewey in 2018, popularised the approach through campaigns for Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile. Because Reynolds is often both marketer and owner, he can approve and ship ads in hours instead of waiting on corporate sign-off.
Can small businesses use fastvertising?
Yes — it suits small businesses especially well because it rewards speed and personality over budget. You don't need a Hollywood actor. You need to react quickly to what your audience is talking about, stay honest and human, and ship simple, timely content instead of waiting on an expensive production.
Do fast, low-budget ads really outperform polished ones?
Often, yes. Ryan Reynolds has said too much money and too much time can murder creativity. A quick, self-aware ad shipped while a topic is still trending beats a glossy one that arrives months later and says nothing — and speed lets you test more ideas and double down on what works.
