What Is Post-Permission Cinema? (And Why We Are Done Waiting for Green Lights)

in , , ,

A term, a movement, and a manifesto for AI filmmaking by Andrew “Oyl” Miller.

Whether you’ve spent 15 minutes or 15 years in the trenches of advertising, you know the exact weight of a 100-page deck. You know the sound of a client’s legal team slowly killing the best idea in the room and filing down the edge just to be safe. You know the calendar math: concept approved in Q1, cameras rolling in Q3, spot airing by Q4, assuming nothing dies in the room, or any corporate restructuring happens between now and then.

Our entire industry was architected around one load-bearing bottleneck: Permission.

Permission to access capital. Permission to hire a crew. Permission from a CMO, a legal team, a regional brand manager, and a nervous account director to turn a script into something that actually lives in the world.

I am here to tell you Permission is Over (If You Want It).

Welcome to Post-Permission Cinema.

Defining Post-Permission Cinema

Post-Permission Cinema is the filmmaking reality we now live in. A moment in creative history where generative AI has completely vaporized the friction between conceptualization and execution.

It is the ability for a single creator, or a small team moving in a singular fashion, to write, direct, and ship broadcast-quality narrative work without requiring traditional gatekeepers, institutional funding, or the logistical weight of a traditional production.

It’s scary and raw. There are no fall-backs. Accountability is out in the open.

In the Post-Permission Cinema era, the barrier to entry is no longer budget. It is no longer accessible. It is no longer who you know inside a network, studio, or holding company.

The only barrier left is vision, taste, and the willingness to execute.

I coined this term because the industry needed one. We have been describing pieces of this shift in word tags and technical jargon: “AI filmmaking,” “synthetic media,” “generative content.” But we haven’t yet zoomed out and named it in the larger historical rupture those pieces add up to. Post-Permission Cinema is that rupture. It is a named era, the way we name the French New Wave or the birth of digital non-linear editing. Something permanent has changed. The least we can do is call it what it is.

The Four Tenets of Post-Permission Cinema

Operating in this new reality requires a complete rewiring of how we think about creative production. These are the core tenets:

1. Execution Kills the Pitch Deck

Nobody wants to scan another generic mood board with the same tired references that have been passed down from Tumblr to Pinterest to TikTok, and smuggled away in art directors’ messy desktops. When the tools exist to generate high-fidelity cinematic renders in minutes, when you can go from a script idea to a locked cut in a weekend, writing a deck about what a film might look like is a waste of everyone’s time, including yours.

In Post-Permission Cinema, the pitch is the pilot. You no longer ask a client or an executive to imagine the final product. You drop the final product in an email. The new starting point is the rough-cut. Pixar style. Let’s judge the details right after we have the script. We are flattening time and exposing taste, or lack thereof.

I’ve spent years seeing teams put together the best pitch decks and treatments in the business. Beautifully typeset. Full reference imagery. High taste references and GIFs. Careful strategic framing. I’m proud of that craft. And I am telling you, as someone who lived inside that system, that those decks were always a substitute for the thing we actually wanted to make. Now we can just make the thing.

Execution is the only currency that matters now. No more hiding behind borrowed references.

2. Taste Is Your Only Moat

When anyone can prompt a photorealistic scene using Luma Dream Machine, Veo, Runway, or Midjourney, and when the render button is universally accessible, the technology itself stops being a competitive advantage. The question of craft becomes, what will you put into these dream machines? Sloppy input leads to sloppy output. Just look at what our feeds have become.

What separates a filmmaker from someone mashing “generate” is everything that comes before the prompt and everything that happens after the output: the conceptual architecture, the instinct for what to cut, the understanding of pacing and tone, and why a certain piece of music makes a sequence land differently. And most importantly, when what you’ve generated doesn’t hit the mark.

This is where years of agency rigor and rendering harsh judgment in the name of raising the creative bar pay dividends in ways no one expected. I’ve spent two decades learning how to build narrative tension inside a 60-second broadcast window. Learning how lighting, camera movement, set design, wardrobe, casting, and all the individual disciplines add up to elevate a piece of work. Learning how a single editorial choice can be the difference between a film people share and a film people scroll past.

None of that experience became obsolete when the tools arrived. It became the whole game. Your eye plus your judgement will define you.

3. The Pipeline Is Flat

Traditional production is a strictly linear march: Pre-Production → Production → Post-Production. Each phase is a separate kingdom with its own vendors, timelines, and handoffs. The whole apparatus was designed to manage the complexity of physical production, which required sequences and dependencies almost by necessity.

Post-Permission Cinema compresses all of that into a singular, overlapping workflow. Scripting, storyboarding, scoring, and cutting happen simultaneously and recursively. I’ll be editing a sequence, and it will suggest a narrative direction I hadn’t considered, which sends me back to the script, which changes the shot list before I’ve even “generated” the shots.

The director is no longer managing a logistical army. They are conducting a symphony of algorithms, agents, and enhanced capabilities, and more importantly, they are making artistic decisions at every stage that used to get diluted across a dozen departments and handoffs.

4. The Audience Is the Only Approver

We used to let ideas die quietly in conference rooms. A concept would get as far as a deck, hit a budget wall or an anxious client, and simply disappear, un-made and un-seen, as if it never existed.

Today you build the work. Then you push it directly into the cultural slipstream and let the timeline decide. Creators are already operating this way. Brands and studios will be next. If they’re smart.

The internet is a ruthless and honest editor. If the work is undeniable, it moves. If it doesn’t move, the problem is yours to solve, not a committee’s, not a budget holder’s. That accountability is clarifying in a way that the permission economy never was.

This Isn’t Theory. It’s Already on the Air.

I want to be precise about this because the discourse around AI filmmaking still tends to exist at the level of demos and proofs-of-concept, tech presentations, and Discord threads. What I’m describing has already crossed into the broadcast world.

In early 2026, I directed one of the first fully AI-generated commercials to clear network standards and air nationally. A 30-second spot for Proofpoint, produced with ONLYCH1LD, and broadcast on ESPN. I applied these lessons immediately to creating two spots, Luma Taxi and Luma Suds, for the Luma Dream Brief that were selected by an elite creative industry jury, run as real ads, and officially submitted to Cannes Lions. Once again, I am taking these lessons and momentum and putting them right back into practice. No bending the knee. No asking nicely. More firsts are coming.

The tools are ready. The networks are accepting the work. The festivals are beginning to evaluate it on the same stage as everything else. We are in full transition now. There are sea changes happening under the surface that will start manifesting in radically diverse ways.

The era of Post-Permission Cinema is not approaching. It has arrived and now surrounds us.

Why Naming This Matters

Every wave of innovation is first dominated by technical conversations. It took storytelling breakthroughs like Jurassic Park and Pixar’s string of early hits to transform technical achievements into a larger, more human, and compelling conversation.

Right now, AI filmmaking is dominated by tech bros flexing workflows and render hacks. Where are the writers? Where are the storytellers? Where are those trying to go beyond the multitude of Elon Musk remixes and cat memes?

I jumped into these tools early, and I want to start naming what’s going on. I want to start having a more nuanced discussion and move beyond all the triggered trolls in my DMs, copy and pasting the same stale arguments. When you stand up first in an area, you can’t help but provoke debate. But would you rather have the machines go fully autonomous, or have some humans in there, wrestling with the tools and fighting to push beyond the edges? What if creatives took over the tools and conversation from the platform companies, venture-funded labs, and trade press, trying to figure out how to cover it? Creators are getting drowned out and marginalized now. We have to punch back.

Post-Permission Cinema is the term for what we are all living through. It describes the power shift. It describes the pipeline change. And it describes the creative obligation that comes with it: there are no more excuses.

The interesting thing is how it is triggering the top and bottom of the pecking order. The old guard and traditional gatekeepers are shaking, as are the anonymous YouTube commenters and trolls. I’m swimming somewhere in the messy middle.

I’m for the independent artists. For poets and writers and makers trying to make themselves heard. I believe it’s a privilege not to use every tool at your disposal. Does Steven Spielberg have any use for emerging tools? Probably not, unless they serve his vision. However, a filmmaker with 300 subscribers on YouTube is in a different boat. The world is not paying attention yet. And I believe the hungry artists with something to say will do whatever it takes to give their ideas shape.

These tools are for anyone who has ever felt blocked.

For anyone who has been denied access. For those who have not been able to raise funds to make their ideas come to life.

Why spend any more of your career idling at red lights that never turn?

The roads are open now.

Where we’re going, you don’t even need roads. You don’t need a green light. You don’t need a studio. You don’t need a network pickup or an agency brief or a client budget approved in Q1.

You need a vision, a set of tools that are already in your hands, and the discipline to stop waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay.

That permission was never going to come anyway. So stop asking and just make like you’ve never made before.

And as we’re seeing early on, traditional gatekeepers are paying attention and trying to figure out what’s going on. Conversations are happening, and models are shifting.

You can’t control that. But you can control what you make.

So what are you waiting for?

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

Waking Up With MLB "Breakfast Club"

in , , , , ,

Hauling baseball scarecrows, midnight huddles, and building a cinematic tribute at magic hour. A BTS look at the making of MLB’s Opening Day commercial in Japan.

For one week, we chased baseball across Japan.

It was a dream production between Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo, MLB, the Fridman Sisters, Stink, and more. We all committed to a simple vision, and burned daylight at both ends (as well as through the night), to pay tribute to the ritual of fans watching early morning baseball in Japan.

What resulted was a deeply textured and authentic love letter to the fans who have been there. The ones who set their alarms before the Ohtani’s and the current generation arrived on the scene. It was also a warm invitation for all fans to rise up and enjoy the poetry and momentum that is MLB in this era.

Here is the resulting Opening Day commercial, “Breakfast Club.”

As we shuttled around Japan, I kept my iPhone and Canon busy documenting the journey. Capturing moments between takes and making sure I had all the memories of this monumental and epic team effort.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

From Laptop to Cannes: Making "Luma Taxi" and "Luma Suds"

in , ,

How a hybrid generative-AI workflow and the Luma Dream Brief turned two solo, cinematic experiments into official Cannes Lions entries.

I made two commercials completely by myself.

And now, thanks to an opportunity from the Luma Dream Brief, they are both headed to Cannes Lions as official entries.

The first spot, Luma Taxi, was born from an idea I’ve had in my head for ages: drop futuristic tech into the Old West, and play it entirely straight. No winking at the camera, no lengthy explanations. Just cowboys and cowgirls operating as early adopters to a new technology and never looking back.

The second spot, Luma Suds, pulls from a deeply personal canon of world-building. Having spent over a decade living in Tokyo, I’ve constantly looked for ways to subvert the gritty, cinematic Japanese crime drama. I wanted to create a laundry detergent commercial with literal life-and-death stakes, living in a dark, criminal underworld where yakuza family members keep lying about the nature of the red stains on their clothes. It’s always that damn “beet root.”

Both of these films were made by me, sitting in front of my laptop, orchestrating every aspect of the generative-AI production.

The era of the one-person studio is a reality now.

Here is a look under the hood at how they came together.

The Blueprint and the Build

Everything started with a script. From there, I wrote a brief outline of the world-building and tone, and uploaded those documents to Luma’s agents.

Then came the visuals. I started by nailing the look of the characters as stills before moving on to the settings. It took a lot of trial and error to achieve the gritty, lived-in, photorealistic worlds I was imagining, but Luma did a pretty incredible job of matching the aesthetic in my head.

As the visuals developed, I moved into Suno to start working on the music. Because each film plays in a very distinct genre, I had clear guardrails for the sound I wanted. I generated around 15 to 20 tracks, picked my favorites, and dropped them into the timeline on my free trial version of Final Cut Pro.

Once I had a music bed and my early generated footage, I started cobbling together a rough cut

The “Pixar Method” of Gen-AI Directing

My AI directing process is heavily modeled after the Pixar method. In Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc., he lays out a rigorous model for iterating and dialing in animated features. You start with very rough sketches cut together into sequences. Over time, the animation is developed and rendered in higher fidelity, replacing the original sketches. The point is that, from a very early stage, you can start to feel the pulse of your characters and the shape of your film.

I worked the exact same way with these edits.

I watched the rough assemblies over and over, diving into the problem areas, tackling the things that bothered me the most, and making those my priorities. This is where taste comes in. Something that only comes from experience lived and absorbed outside of the prompting box.

Honestly, there were moments I desperately wanted to include that the tools just couldn’t pull off. I wanted snappier back-and-forths between the characters, but AI “actors” aren’t quite there yet. So, I pivoted. I shifted my approach and leaned heavily into visual storytelling.

Iterating in Real-Time

Over the course of a week, I just kept staring at my rough cuts. Once the basic blocks were in place, I started finessing the transitions. Was the music connecting us? Were the cuts satisfying? How could I make it more surprising? These are the exact same questions I’ve been asking for the past 20 years while making commercials the traditional way. So many of those instincts and skills carry over directly into AI; the timeline is just massively compressed. It almost feels like you are rewriting the script over and over again until the film is done.

And in AI, there are no “re-shoots.” If you realize you are missing a shot in the edit, you can generate it and plug it in within minutes.

As the cuts got sharper, I zeroed in on the details. How could I land the end card and the product reveal? Were there facial expressions I wanted to try again? Did I need supporting sound effects? Was the footage getting repetitive? It was time to fine-tune and kill my darlings.

Solving for Story

With Luma Taxi, the spot was entirely driven by the narration. I wanted it to feel like an Old West fable, guided by a gravelly, unreliable narrator telling us exactly how things went down. The voice was designed using ElevenLabs. After about seven variations, I found the exact tone and texture I needed, a voice I definitely want to use again in future projects.

I fine-tuned that voice to match the rhythm of the visuals and the music until it felt seamless. If there was a gap that felt too quiet, I’d write a little more VO to connect the thoughts. My original VO ran long (as they usually do), so I just continued to watch the cut and perfect the narration all the way through production.

With Luma Suds, the trickiest part was executing the opening “problem” trigger: the young yakuza spilling wine on the godfather. I spent dozens of generations trying to crack that scene “in-camera,” but the physics and blocking never worked out. Even when I described exactly what I wanted, the AI actor would do something completely out of pocket, like grabbing the godfather’s arm and violently shaking it to spill the wine. Killing the tension and drama of that moment.

Instead of fighting the physics, I leaned into the reaction shots of the partygoers to tell that part of the story. It actually ended up playing up the gravity and consequence of the moment far better than a direct spill would have.

The Era of Post-Permission Cinema

Looking back at these two spots, the biggest takeaway for me is how much of traditional filmmaking still applies. The tools have changed, but the fundamental need for human instinct hasn’t. For two decades, I’ve relied on taste, timing, and problem-solving to make ideas work. Now, I’m applying those exact same muscles to a generative workflow.

We are stepping into an era of post-permission cinema. You no longer need a massive crew, a sprawling location shoot, or a bloated budget to bring a wild, cinematic idea to life and get it all the way to Cannes. If I had my choice and an unlimited budget, I’d always choose the traditional way. But I am aware that change is coming, and new lanes and forms will emerge from these tools. My approach is to get in there early, deeply learn and test the tools, and help push the boundaries of what is possible.

Most of the early AI work I’ve seen has not been for me. At first, I thought it was just for quick memes and fan fiction featuring Elon Musk. Getting deeper into the tools, I now see that you can make whatever you want. The tech bros will continue making their “Hollywood is cooked” spectacles, but when true artists get behind the keyboard, different tones and voices will be unlocked.

It’s an exciting time for makers. Where your ideas can now go directly into production. No client approvals. No messy group meetings watering things down. No uncomfortable compromises. If you have an idea, you can bring it to life in a very final and polished way. It has collapsed time and stacked disciplines in a way we’ve never seen before.

You just need a laptop, a clear vision, and the willingness to iterate until the story clicks.

The barriers are gone. Now, the only thing you need is a great idea.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

Two Commercials I Directed Are Heading to Cannes

in , ,

My Luma Dream Brief entries “Luma Taxi” and “Luma Suds” are moving forward as real ads and official Cannes contenders.

I got a fun email this morning.

Two commercials I wrote and directed for the Luma Dream Brief have been selected to run as paid ads, and will officially be entered into the 2026 Cannes Lions. From here, any of the selected ads that win a coveted Gold Lion will split a share of a $1,000,000 prize pot.

The past year has been a grind and a blur in the AI film space. What started as a curiosity quickly gathered momentum. 2026 has seen one of my AI-commercials run on ESPN, and now two more are official ads for Luma AI, and heading to Cannes.

Anyway, here are my spots for Luma, now running as paid ads.

The first, Luma Taxi, takes us to the town of Luma where the horses have gone on strike and autonomous vehicles help the Old West mayhem go without a hitch.

And Luma Suds, the generational yakuza epic meets laundry detergent commercial of my wildest dreams.

Under the Hood: The Hybrid Workflow

For both commercials, I used a hybrid workflow I’ve been developing over the past year. AI filmmaking leverages powerful technology, but the best examples I’ve seen are far from the “just push a button” meme you see in your feeds. There is still a lot of room for human authorship and decisions to be made. Here is how these films were built:

  • Writing as Storyboarding: It starts with rough notes and outlining, which then turn into a draft of a script. I usually start storyboarding at this phase, but I like to do it in writing. I’ll write out dense descriptions of the scenes and moments I have in my head, which naturally evolve into the core prompts.

  • Generating the Blocks: Next, I start generating the key sequences. The prompting and results can still be like rolling a pair of dice, so a lot of re-rolling is involved.

  • The Edit: Once I have the basic building blocks, I drop the clips into Final Cut Pro. From there, I start pulling selects and getting the spine of the story into a rough edit. It’s a lot of back-and-forth with the Luma model to fill in the holes and perfect key moments.

  • Setting the Tone: Early on, I go into Suno AI (a generative music model) to start playing around with the tone of the score. I like to get music on the timeline to edit against. Even if it’s rough, I can always switch it out later with a more crafted version.

  • Voice & Character: For the Luma Taxi spot, I created an original AI narrator in ElevenLabs. It had to be gravelly and period-accurate, a voice with enough authority to make even the absurd sound like a black-and-white legend. I was pleased with how it fit the genre and tone I was going for.

I sat with both edits for a couple of weeks, watching them through and making little tweaks to the timing as I lived with them.

With generative AI, there are always moments you wish turned out differently, or frames you wish matched the exact, specific vision in your head. But like any traditional commercial set with a hard deadline, at some point, you have to let go and put it out there.

I’m excited to have the spots out there and running as real ads. It’s all so surreal, and I already have a number of upcoming projects in the pipeline. Stay tuned.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

How I Became an AI Film Director After 20 Years in Advertising

in , ,

From Nike campaigns to uncanny valley experiments to an AI commercial on ESPN—how Veo, Luma, and pure obsession unlocked a new way to make films without permission.

Still from Luma Taxi Dream Brief AI commercial. Written, directed, and produced by Andrew “Oyl” Miller. 2026.

For a long time, I stayed away from generative AI video tools.

What I saw in my feeds looked like memes and party tricks.

I’ve spent over two decades in advertising, writing and producing commercials and content for brands like Nike, PlayStation, IKEA, Amazon, and more. I had my routines, my established network, and my way of doing things. I’ve collaborated with and had deep creative discussions with legendary directors like Tony Kaye and Frank Budgen. I’ve been lucky enough to glimpse into a dream world of film, and I fell in love with the craft of it all. Yes, tools and taste are ever-evolving, but I deeply fell into a belief that traditional film techniques are the only way.

But then, last year, Google dropped a generative AI video model called Veo 3. I soon saw a random clip of an AI-generated character speaking, with near-perfect lip-sync.

That was the Big Bang of my rocketing journey through the AI film universe.

Suddenly, a lifetime of imaginary characters and dormant stories flashed through my head. Old directionless fragments and shards of ideas in dusty notebooks suddenly had new life. There was so much inside of me that had never found a proper outlet or received the official industry blessing. But when the sky cracked open, and I saw that a cluster of pixels could approximate life and human-ish performance, the writer in me started shaking. I didn’t know exactly where this was going, but I was suddenly, violently compelled to get these ideas out.

Welcome to the Infinite Sandbox in the Uncanny Valley

I started with the low-hanging fruit: Stormtroopers. As a lifelong Star Wars nerd, placing Stormtroopers into our everyday world was a cheap engine for endless gags. They went camping, they went to Cannes, they went to Burning Man. The possibilities were literally endless. It became a meme. Others jumped on.

But soon, I knew I needed to get my own voice out there. I saw AI not just as a way to create blockbuster spectacle, but as a potential platform for unique writing and voice. So naturally, I dipped into the 1980s.

I started thinking about archaic, crusty baseball coaches who hated the modern game. Men triggered by everything, armed with zero self-awareness and iron-clad beliefs from an ancient era. Being in advertising, I knew a funny character wasn’t enough. I needed a platform. I needed world-building.

That became Deadball Academy. Set in present-day Scottsdale, it’s a facility run by a group of coaches stuck in 1984 who bring in modern baseball prospects and corrupt them with deeply backward instruction. It’s a whole universe with lore and bizarre pockets of backstory. I quickly realized there was a LOT to mine here.

The episodes started writing themselves. Sometimes by hand, sometimes as fragmented dialogue and jokes in a notes app. When I strung together enough lines that made me laugh, I started building prompts. It became a new form of mini-screenwriting: establishing a setting, defining a character description, placing a line of dialogue, dictating the delivery, and always defining the cinematic camera look and movement.

Prompt. Prompt. Prompt.

Judge. Re-write. Edit. Curate.

The characters and voices came flooding back. Some were stuck in the uncanny valley; others looked insanely, undeniably good. Nothing was perfect, but it was allowing me to build a rip-o-matic for a cinematic universe that simply didn’t exist before.

Building in Public (and Becoming the Villain)

Whenever an idea outside of Deadball Academy popped into my head, I pursued it. I leaned into Midjourney to test visual styles. I used Suno to tap into my love of songwriting, generating rough, pounding tracks to score my films. Quickly, I was building up a workflow and stack of tools that let me operate a film studio right at my desk.

All the while, I was building in public.

And the internet reacted exactly how you’d expect. I started getting nasty DMs and anonymous trolls flooding my channels. I get it. AI is polarizing, and like it or not, I’ve become the bad guy to some people. But my curiosity, and the voices demanding to be let out of my head, wouldn’t let me stop. Sorry, not sorry. You don’t last in advertising without developing a bulletproof coping mechanism for intense criticism. I just kept pushing. I hear the voices, and the silent judgement, and I keep going.

I’m not looking for your approval. I’m looking for possibilities.

The Trojan Horse and the Million-Dollar Brief

Then, the inbound interest started.

One of those calls turned into writing and directing my first AI commercial, for cybersecurity start-up Proofpoint, which actually aired on ESPN. That is still an insane sentence to write, but it’s internet fact now. I’ve got the receipts. I partnered with the visionary team at ONLYCH1LD, and their openness to this new form was infectious. I even made a bonkers BTS gag reel using the “lead actor” from the Proofpoint spot, CLIFF DATAMAN. Yet another exercise in using the tools for world-building. I just keep leaning into the tangents I find most interesting.

Right around that time, an old Wieden+Kennedy colleague reached out about the Luma Dream Brief.

The AI film contest from Luma AI asked AI directors to use the Luma model to make an ad for a fictional Luma-branded product. Entries would go before a panel of advertising, film, and creative industry legends. Their picks would then be run as real ads for Luma, and officially submitted to Cannes Lions.

I’m not an awards hound, but I recognize how they contribute to career momentum. The thought of creating breakthrough work in an emerging film category was a strong motivation. On top of that, the contest also offered a one-million-dollar prize if the AI commercial ends up winning a Gold Lion.

As someone who has had some of my best work not given the blessing to submit to Cannes and other festivals, for weird, internal political reasons, the idea of no gatekeepers and a chance at entry appealed to me. Gatekeepers in advertising can be brutal. This contest arrived at the exact right time, offering a clean path to submit something with my uncompromised vision directly to Cannes, complete with a shot at a million dollars.

I dove into Luma’s tools and quickly built up a series of spots. What Luma did was validate my deepest belief: the best idea can come from anywhere. Committees, meetings, and endless feedback loops obfuscate that truth. Luma provided a cheat code to circumvent the murky layers of the industry. No feedback. No hidden agendas. No rubber stamps.

Just a clean shot.

If someone wanted to pair a multi-generational yakuza epic with a hard sell for laundry detergent, no one could stand in the way.

What’s Next?

This is where I stand in 2026. Turning a new page, letting my curiosity drive the way.

I will keep pushing, refining, and mastering these tools. But more importantly, I am looking to push beyond advertising. I’m looking to formalize series and put my voice out there in bigger, longer, more ambitious ways.

I have drafts of screenplays and novels waiting in the wings. I now see a world where AI filmmaking bridges the gap between a written page and a green light that I’ve been chasing for years at the end of a long and winding tunnel. Proof of concepts. Opening scenes. Theatrical trailers. That is the new brief.

My mission statement is this: I will keep making things that no one is asking for.

How can I use AI not just to increase my output or be more efficient, but to truly amplify my voice and get my stories made? It’s a crazy dream. It’s a lonely road. But the curiosity and possibilities keep me building. Studio Oyl.

What that means is I’m just a guy at a laptop, letting my fingers do the dreaming.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can check out his work on his website.

New Work: Evil Has Always Had A Name

in ,

A live-action short film for the launch of Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem.

I didn’t have writing a Resident Evil prequel short film and campaign line on my bingo card. But when it comes to writing long-form cinematic content, count me in.

Massive shout-out to Lucas McClain, Jonathan Marques, and Nomadic Agency for bringing “Evil Has Always Had a Name” to life in such a powerful and filmic way. 🧟‍♀️ 🍿 🔥

Directed by Rich Lee. Starring Maika Monroe.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon and IKEA. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

My First AI-Directed Commercial Just Aired on ESPN

in ,

From prompt to national broadcast: Teaming up with ONLYCH1LD to bring Proofpoint AI to life.

Here’s a fun one.

I just directed my first AI commercial to air on broadcast television. No set. No crew. No craft services. Just a brief, a core of smart creatives, and the tools to make it real.

This comes on the heels of CDing a very beautiful, and traditionally crafted spot for MLB Japan, shot on location in Tokyo with the Fridman Sisters and Stink. If I had my choice and an unlimited budget, I would make films the old-school way every time.

Welcome to 2026. With one foot planted in the traditions of film craft, and the other under the desk in my AI-powered portable studio, I bring what I’ve learned from nearly 20 years of experience in advertising to this new frontier.

My early AI experiments, like my original AI sports comedy series, Deadball Academy, have brought me a series of interesting meetings. One with the San Francisco-based production company ONLYCH1LD.

It was from these talks that the opportunity to direct my first broadcast AI commercial popped up. The timeline was aggressive and the plan ambitious. But with ONLYCH1LD as steady, experienced, and enthusiastic partners, we took the plunge and immediately started production on a spot for Proofpoint, a leading cybersecurity company in Silicon Valley.

The vision for the spot was chaotic, comedic, and a little bit unhinged. An AI CEO walks calmly through an office under siege while Proofpoint’s agents extinguish fires, stop robbers, and prevent data theft, all with the energy of a Saturday morning cartoon directed by someone who grew up on Tony Scott.

Working with the team at ONLYCH1LD, the creative came together in a matter of weeks; a timeline that would have been impossible in traditional production. AI didn’t replace the creative process. It compressed it. The brief still needed a point of view. The script still needed a voice. And putting it together required a lot of human conversation.

After spending a couple of weeks “directing” the AI-actor, I had grown a little attached to that cluster of pixels. I even gave him a name: CLIFF DATAMAN. One thing led to another, and soon I had a full-on behind-the-scenes blooper reel, profiling Cliff Dataman’s “on-set” antics.

As I said, things got a little unhinged.

Via Ads of the World — Part of the Clio Network, March 2026:

ONLYCH1LD brings cybersecurity to life in its latest campaign for Proofpoint, turning an office under attack into a chaotic, comedic AI-powered spectacle. The fully AI-driven spot blends absurd humor with bold visual storytelling, showcasing how Proofpoint protects people, data and brands against cyberattacks.

“ONLYCH1LD has been a trusted creative partner for us, and they quickly understood the need to deliver something memorable that balanced humor with clear messaging,” shares Proofpoint CMO Joyce Kim. “Their team proposed a fast, intentionally over the top AI approach that allowed us to move quickly while still creating a bold piece that stands out.”

The campaign came together in just a few weeks following a marketing pivot by Proofpoint’s new CMO, who turned to ONLYCH1LD to reimagine messaging and tone. The :30 broadcast spot, currently airing on ESPN, features an AI CEO casually walking through a chaotic office while Proofpoint’s AI agents prevent data theft, extinguish fires and stop robbers in their tracks. ONLYCH1LD also produced a blooper reel and short clips for social media, giving audiences a look behind the scenes and amplifying the campaign’s absurd, cinematic humor.

“It’s funny, because I wasn’t really ‘on set,’ given a computer made this commercial. But had I been, I would’ve been thrilled with the commitment!” concludes ONLYCH1LD’s ECD Samuel Miller. “In reality, there was no reason to play it safe given the timeline and desire for memorability. We decided to go a bit over the top — or, as Oyl said, ‘bombastic.’ Oyl gave us the freedom to do that while still staying grounded in Proofpoint’s message. It ended up being this fun, controlled chaos — while still fully on brand. And kind of weirdly authentic in its humor.”

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon and IKEA. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

Luma Dream Brief Entry - Luma Taxi Commercial "Ride On"

in ,

For the last four years, I’ve spent my days wandering the Arizona desert, staring at the vast, empty horizon and dreaming of things that simply couldn’t exist.

In my head, it was always a collision of future-forward tech and the grit of the Old West. But in the agency world, those ideas usually die a slow, silent death. They get pushed aside by “logic,” budget spreadsheets, or that one tuned-out, nasally voice in the corner of the conference room asking, “But whyyyyyyyyy?”

Logic is a dream-killer.

But then the Luma Dream Brief gave me a preemptive green light and a license to dream. No pitch decks. No “safety” edits. Just a raw workflow and the tools to finally build the thing I’ve been seeing in the heat haze:

A frontier town in the Wild West, where the horses have gone on strike, and the cowboys are fighting for their lives on bucking autonomous vehicles.

This is Luma Taxi. In an alternate timeline of approvals, it’s a Super Bowl ad. In our reality, it’s a dual launch on Substack and LinkedIn.

In the spirit of Luma Taxi, Ride on.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

The Last Trickster Poet of Hollywood

in , , , ,

A remembrance of an evening with Val Kilmer—where he conjured a provocation: the creative life begins when you stop asking for permission, find art in the everyday, and dare to make your own reality.

It wasn’t a conversation, not in the traditional sense. Val Kilmer didn’t stand behind a podium. He didn’t read from notes. He shuffled onstage, found an armchair that looked like it belonged in a sunken living room from 1978, and just—sat.

This was at my college, a small liberal arts school with an ambitious lecture series that had recently hosted former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, and an up-and-coming senator named Barack Obama. These were people of consequence. Leaders who made policy, waged war, held power.

But none of them had been Batman, Iceman, Doc Holliday and Jim Morrison all rolled into one. None of them had that strange electricity of myth and menace, all bottled in a single person.

The moment Kilmer appeared on stage, the air in the room changed.

This was post-Heat, post-Batman, the tail-end of a decade when he’d shape-shifted through a rogue’s gallery of icons. He was famous in a way that felt dangerous. You didn’t know what he’d say—and that was the point.

He opened the floor to questions immediately. No script. Just Val, free-associating through Twain and Shakespeare, quoting his own films, rhapsodizing about his kids, about cameras, about the stubborn, irrational act of making art. The whole night orbited one message:

Create your own reality.

Nobody’s going to hand it to you. And even when they do, you’ll have to fight to keep it. Surprise people. Be undeniable.

He told the story of landing The Doors. He hadn’t waited for a studio call. He recorded himself singing Morrison songs. Slipped one of his own into the demo, unlabeled. Even Oliver Stone couldn’t tell which was which. Neither could the remaining members of the band. He became Morrison, and by the time casting decisions were made, there was no decision. Val was the Lizard King.

He talked about being the first person he knew to own a video camera. He filmed constantly. It was the same footage that would, decades later, form the spine of Val, his devastating, luminous 2020 documentary.

And somewhere in those rambling minutes, something clicked in me.

That night, Kilmer didn’t just perform. He modeled something. A way of living as an artist—scrappy, obsessive, defiant, enchanted. Shortly after Kilmer’s talk, I started carrying around my own video camera. I shot everything. DIY remakes of Psycho. Art films about levitating scissors. Late-night antics at Denny’s . I wasn’t trying to make something perfect. I was trying to live creatively. To treat reality as pliable. To find everlasting moments in every day. Val would understand.

It’s easy to remember the fun stuff. He did say “I’m your Huckleberry,” and yes, he told a story about Marlon Brando so strange it felt like a hallucination—involving face paint and a kimono. But what stayed with me were the deeper threads—about fate, failure, and the fragile, self-styled scaffolding that holds up an artistic life.

When someone asked about his reputation for being “difficult,” he didn’t flinch. He spoke about being a guardian of truth—for the characters he played. If he found something essential, he fought for it. The work didn’t have to be easy. It had to be real.

He talked about his son thinking he was actually Batman, not Val. Even after showing his son the movie, the boy was not convinced, and assured that he was Batman, and not his father onscreen, despite the blockbuster proof. What is reality anyway?

Maybe we are all Batman.

Kilmer painted, drew, made collages. None of that showed up in the tabloids, but it pulsed through him that night. A creative energy too unruly for one medium. You realized that the onscreen personas were just fragments and borrowed masks—glimpses of someone constantly inventing, constantly seeking.

I watched Val recently. Listened to the audiobook of his memoir I’m Your Huckleberry. Rewatched Tombstone, then Heat. And suddenly, I was back in that auditorium. In the dark. Watching a man peel away the myth and try on masks, only to reveal something stranger: a deeply sincere, wildly imperfect, defiantly poetic romantic. It was impossible not to feel inspired by that.

He made rebellion feel sacred. Mischief felt like method. He refused to play the Hollywood game, even as he conquered it. His career was a masterclass in turning dust into gold and getting bored the moment it gleamed.

Yes, he made baffling choices. Burned bridges. Took detours no manager would have greenlit. And yet he carved out something rare: a career that was his. A life of ecstatic contradictions.

He turned down the easy version of success. Maybe he regretted it. Maybe he didn’t. What’s certain is that he kept surprising us, right up until his voice gave out, and then—somehow—kept talking.

That night affirmed something in me.

I stopped waiting for permission. I stopped bowing down to so-called gatekeepers and forces I can’t control. I started making things. Well, I started making more things. Different things. Experiments. And I’ve kept on, trusting that if you throw enough wonder into the world, something unexpected will come back. It worked for Val, and over time, I’ve seen it play out in my domain as well.

Val Kilmer was, and is, our Huckleberry.

A trickster-poet in a cape. A dreamer who saw art everywhere. The crew-cut scene-stealer who once stole Top Gun from Tom Cruise with a single, arrogant chomp of chewing gum.

The Lizard King who refused to let The End define him—but instead transform him.

And when we look back, when we really trace the strange flickering light he left behind, what do we see?

We see the ghost of Jim Morrison swaggering through firelight, singing prophecy through a veil of leather and smoke—somehow about something more soulful than an expected chronicle of sex, drugs, rock n’ roll.

We see Doc Holliday, pale and facing the void, still faster on the draw than anyone alive. A Southern specter, one foot in the grave, the other in poetry.

We see Batman, not the brooding demigod of later years, but something more tormented—more Shakespearean. A Batman who looked like he’d read Hamlet and meant it.

We see Chris Shiherlis in Heat, silent and wounded, a thief with the face of a fallen angel and the soul of someone already halfway gone.

And we see Val himself, in Val, the final act, stripped of voice but not spirit. Archiving his own myth with love, regret, and more vulnerability than Hollywood ever knew what to do with.

Each of these characters was a mask. And each mask revealed something truer.

Because Val Kilmer didn’t just play icons. He inhabited them. Bent their voices to his cadence. Let their ghosts borrow his skin. He moved through genre, through persona, through time, as if this life was just one long improv scene and he was dead set on finding its truth before the lights went down.

And maybe that’s the real secret:

He was never just acting.
He was becoming.

Becoming the outlaw.
Becoming the poet.
Becoming the myth.

Becoming a cosmic jester with paint on his hands and a camera in his palm, chasing beauty across deserts and backlots and dreams.

Some actors fade.
Val burned.
With brilliance. With mess. With risk. With refusal.

He created a reality larger than the screen. A creative life so alive it bled off the edges. A rock opera of detours and digressions that joyfully haunt us all.

So here’s to Val.

Our Huckleberry.
Our Saint.
Our fading gunfighter, laughing into the abyss.
Our shapeshifter in the spotlight.
Our silent poet in the wings.

Val, if you're listening—
as you're out there still filming, still dreaming, still editing the reel of your cosmic cut—know this:

You didn’t just live a life.
You performed a constellation.
And we, lucky as hell, got to look up.

Grass, Leather, and the Geometry of Failure

in , , ,

How baseball reveals the beauty and brutality of being human.

Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki throws his first pitch on the mound at Camelback Ranch during spring training. Glendale, Arizona. Photo by Andrew Miller.

Baseball begins with a whisper.

Not a roar, not a frenzy of synchronized chanting or the gut-punching bass of stadium speakers rattling ribcages.

No, baseball begins out of sight, behind chain-link fences on dew-soaked backfields where the grass is still wet enough to stain your cleats and the air carries the faint scent of distant concessions. It’s less an arrival and more a reemergence—the slow, deliberate stretching of limbs, the muscle memory of leather against palm, of fingers searching for that perfect grip along uniform red stitches. Something deep and primal stirs, an echo of summers past and seasons unfinished.

Baseball is a contradiction in cleats. It is both timeless and fleeting. Timeless in the sense that the game itself has barely changed in over a century—the diamond remains ninety feet to first, the pitcher’s mound still sixty feet, six inches from home plate, and the rituals of sunflower seeds, pine tar, and rally caps persist like sacred rites. And yet, for those who step onto the field, the opportunity is heartbreakingly finite—a narrow window to weave yourself into the tapestry of a game far greater than the sum of its individual strands.

And make no mistake, baseball is a game of strands—light and shadow, myth and mathematics. There’s the version you see on glossy posters and highlight reels, all towering home runs and gravity-defying catches. Then there’s the version obscured by shadows—the grinding repetition of early-morning fielding drills, the bone-deep ache of a season’s wear and tear, and the whispered superstitions that players follow as if appeasing the baseball gods themselves. Step over the chalk lines. Never mention a no-hitter in progress. Wear the same socks—unwashed, if necessary—until the streak ends.

Baseball’s unwritten rules are less suggestions and more commandments etched into the collective consciousness of players and fans alike. Violate them at your peril. Flip your bat a little too enthusiastically? Expect a fastball in the ribs next time up. Linger too long admiring a home run? Watch your teammates duck the consequences. It’s a sport where humility and hubris exist in constant tension, where respect for the game is paramount—even as the game itself shows little mercy in return.

Consider the cruel calculus of baseball. In no other sport is failure so visible, so frequent, and so defining. Hit safely three times out of ten and you’re a legend. Anything less, and you’re just another name etched into the ever-expanding database of statistical mediocrity. And the numbers are always there, whispering in the background—batting averages, on-base percentages, exit velocities—each data point a tiny chisel scraping away at the illusion of permanence. Swagger might get you through the tunnel, but baseball’s relentless machinery grinds down even the most confident players, reducing ego to dust scattered across the infield.

Yet, for all its cruelty, baseball remains a democracy of opportunity. The lineup is a great equalizer—one through nine, every player gets their turn. There are no shortcuts, no strategic dodges that let a team avoid its weakest link. When the game is on the line, fate might call upon a superstar, but just as often it taps the shoulder of a journeyman utility player whose name barely registers outside the clubhouse. And should that unheralded player deliver in that singular moment—should they lace a line drive into the gap or drop a perfectly placed bunt—the weight of their past failures momentarily lifts, replaced by the intoxicating clarity of success.

Of course, the opposite is also true. A stellar career can unravel in an instant—the wrong hop, a momentary lapse in concentration, or the cruel physics of a baseball rolling through the legs at the worst possible moment. Think of Bill Buckner. One error, one instant of misfortune, and decades of excellence reduced to a single highlight looped endlessly across sports networks. Baseball remembers both your triumphs and your failures, but it has a longer memory for the latter.

And yet, year after year, players return. They gather in sun-drenched ballparks and windswept dugouts, chasing that fleeting sensation of contact perfectly made—the sharp crack of bat against ball, the clean thwack of leather as a fastball hits the catcher’s mitt. They return because, despite everything, baseball offers a portal to something beyond the drudgery of daily life. It demands total immersion—an obsessive focus on the minute details of weight transfer, swing mechanics, and release points. Hours spent perfecting the spin of a slider or the precise timing of a swing become their own form of meditation. See ball. Hit ball. The mantra is deceptively simple, but in its simplicity lies the freedom to disappear into the moment, untethered from the world outside the foul lines.

Baseball is both therapy and torture—a game that reveals character with unflinching clarity. Step into the batter’s box after a strikeout and the game will immediately test your ability to forget the past. The pitcher on the mound doesn’t care about your self-doubt. The scoreboard doesn’t offer sympathy. The only question that matters is whether you can reset, whether you can convince yourself—against all evidence to the contrary—that this time, this swing, will be different.

And perhaps this is why baseball players are, more often than not, a peculiar breed. To survive a season’s worth of failures requires a contradictory blend of obsessive focus and short-term amnesia. You must care deeply about every detail of their craft while maintaining the ability to shrug off each setback as if it never happened. The moment you start carrying yesterday’s failures into today’s game, the weight becomes too much to bear. So you forget. You rebuild your confidence from scratch, one at-bat at a time, until the next slump arrives to tear it all down again.

This cycle—of hope and heartbreak, of success measured in fractions of inches—is what makes baseball both maddening and irresistible. It’s why, every February, players gather once more on those dew-covered backfields, their breath visible in the crisp morning air as they stretch and sprint and reacquaint themselves with the feel of bat and glove. They come not because they’ve forgotten the failures of seasons past, but because they’ve chosen to believe that this year might be different. That this year, the baseball gods might smile a little more kindly. Empirical evidence and a Wikipedia page full of strikeouts be damned.

Baseball is coming.

This is both promise and threat.

And somewhere out there, on a sun-warmed field where shadows fall long and thin, a ballplayer picks up a scuffed baseball and grips it tight. The seams press into his fingers, familiar and strange all at once. He winds up, lets it fly, and listens for the sound—the slap of leather against leather, the first echo of a thousand possibilities yet unwritten. The whisper that started it all, now rising, growing, swelling into something more.

Because baseball, in the end, is not merely a sport like the others, but rather a cosmic question posed to the universe: What if this time, just this once, it all goes right?

Play ball.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Lose the Jargon

in ,

I know robots are the future, but that doesn't mean we have to talk to people like we are one.

Marketing and advertising have always been a breeding ground for jargon.

It comes from a desperate instinct to organize chaos.

To name and label and make the unknowable known.

To make people with no idea what they are doing sound like experts.

Fake it till you make it, and all that.

But if all of these efforts are to ultimately connect with actual human beings, how do these inhuman terms help?

Holistic paradigms. Achieve virality. Orchestrate behavior loops. Foster brand equity. Omni-channel experiences. Catalyze disruption innovation. Harmonize touchpoints. Optimize stakeholder value. Accelerate brand consideration. Agile methodologies. Maximize ROI. Segmentation.

And my favorite, least human shout out of them all: CONSUMERS.

How do we activate and empower consumers to drive brand awareness and capture increased market share with a media agnostic marketing mix that micro targets Gen-Z favored niches where they congregate on and offline? #iykyk #Blessed

Ummmmmmmmmmmm….

I’ll get back to you on that one…

While strategic thinking and analytical reasoning is important, we shouldn’t get lost in talking to each other like a bunch of bots and algorithms.

Keep things simple.

Reduce the complex into easy conversations.

Digest all of the big data and make it your own.

Search for TRUTH not facts, numbers and formats.

The whole point of trying to reach people is to make them feel something.

All of the layers of insider speak just get in the way.

What’s worse, is some people seem to relish using this jargon.

I’ve run into a few junior creatives lately who were very good at using fancy terms.

It made them sound hypnotic and polished.

It felt like a part of their identity.

But what were they really saying?

Who were they trying to impress?

I tried to talk with them in simple ways and threw in a few dumb jokes to break the trance.

What do you want to make? What do you find interesting? Seen any good shows lately? Look at this dumb thing I saw on Instagram.

Sometimes it’s small talk that naturally turns into big ideas.

You can offer way more value if you talk to people like yourself.

You don’t need to adopt a voice that makes you sound like everyone else.

Everyone struggles with imposter syndrome, and jargon can be a mask and source of strength.

But sounding smart in a meeting and being good at what you do are not the same thing.

It’s okay to let your guard down.

No one knows everything and we aren’t counting on you to be an expert.

We need you to be yourself and offer only what you can offer.

The smartest people I’ve worked with sound like super regular people.

They’re human, uncertain, funny and like no one else.

But they keep showing up as themselves and being vulnerable.

They’re willing to put in the deep thought to figure hard things out.

Don’t let a mastery of a dictionary of industry terms be a substitute for actual mastery.

The gig is to solve problems.

Not create an unnecessary labyrinth of words and checkpoints that obscure the goal.

The next time someone drops some jargon on you in a meeting, ask what they mean.

Get them to go a little deeper.

Encourage them to explain it in their own words.

And if you catch yourself saying something overly technical, keep talking.

Try to rephrase in a way that says what you are thinking.

That’s when the sparks and insights truly come.

Sometimes it’s the person who is brave enough to sound uncertain or simple that triggers the breakthrough.

Especially these days, we have plenty of AIs and algorithms we can turn to if we want overly analytic and stoic responses.

Let us band together as humans having real conversations.

That’s always been our strength.

We’re beings that feel and cry and make stupid jokes.

You don’t have to be slick or polished to be good.

You’ll be judged by the quality of your thought.

You don’t score points for using trendy gibberish.

Lose the jargon.

Use your own voice.

That’s where your power lies.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Shohei Ohtani: Surpassing Expectations. As Expected.

in , , , ,

Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented 50/50 milestone isn’t just rewriting baseball history—it’s redefining what greatness in the game looks like.

Shoutout to MLB and Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo.

Shohei Ohtani has made history and headlines.

Again.

Does it matter?

It’s just numbers after all, right? Who cares about dry statistics? Ohtani doesn’t even play defense (this year). What about Aaron Judge? Francisco Lindor? Aren’t they having monster seasons too?

Alright, talking heads. So-called pundits. Blabbermouths. Clickbait conmen. Circus freaks.

I’m hitting MUTE on all of you.

Because, yes, Shohei Ohtani’s 50-home-run, 50-stolen-base milestone does matter. And if you don’t think so, history won’t be kind to you.

First of all, no one in the history of baseball—in all its dusty, 150-million-year-old grandiosity—has ever done this. Ohtani’s already been creating his own new club of achievement. Each homer, each steal, is another chapter in the history books. But fine, 47/47 didn’t get the same headlines because we’re obsessed with round, juicy numbers that roll off the tongue. Fifty feels better, doesn’t it?

But let’s talk about where this deserved hype is coming from.

Yes, Judge and Lindor are putting up incredible seasons, too. They are elite, but in a way that’s still earthly. We’ve seen their kind before. They’re fantastic, MVP-worthy, even.

But Shohei Ohtani? He’s beyond that. We’re talking about a unicorn leading a revolution.

Remember, before Ohtani, it had been almost 100 years since anyone both pitched and hit at a high level in Major League Baseball. The last to do it? Babe Ruth—America’s first national sports superstar. Ruth was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan. Elvis before Elvis—if Elvis could swing a 44-ounce bat, call his shots, promise sick kids a homer, then deliver, and hop on the mound to strike out fools with a grin on his face. The Sultan of Swat? Sure. But also the king of swagger.

And then… baseball stopped letting players try both. “That’s just not how it’s done,” they said, as if the game had some holy decree carved into the surface of horse hide-wrapped spheres.

Pick one. Hit or pitch. Baseball said, “You can’t have both.”

And so, for generations, players with two-way talent were forced into boxes—generation after generation of missed opportunity. Call them the lost years. Call it what happens when tradition becomes tyranny.

Then, Shohei Ohtani arrived.

Out of Japan, where he was drafted out of high school by the Nippon Ham Fighters. Yes, Ham Fighters. I don’t know what they have against ham, but suddenly, Ohtani was one.

Why? Did he hate ham? Was this some personal vendetta against pork products? Who knows. But what we do know is that they offered him something no one else did: the chance to both pitch and hit. It was unheard of. Even Ohtani was surprised. Because that’s not how modern pro baseball works. It’s a game of specialization, after all. You focus on one thing and become the best at it. But the Ham Fighters? They were willing to fight a lot more than ham. They were ready to take on the entire baseball establishment.

It wasn’t an overnight success. Hell, it wasn’t even a home run. Maybe closer to a strikeout. But baseball is a game of failure, and the Ham Fighters and Ohtani stuck with it. Slowly, methodically, he developed a routine, building up both sides of his game until he was a legitimate two-way threat.

MLB scouts came in droves. And as Ohtani’s skills sharpened, it became clear he had his sights set on America. The big leagues.

Scouts were famously mixed on Ohtani. Including one hot take that said Ohtani wasn’t special and basically looked like a high school hitter. Ha.

Then came the real question: Would any team actually let him continue to play both ways?

No one believed it. It sounded like a novelty, a marketing gimmick. Just wait, they thought—he’ll have to pick one. But the Los Angeles Angels? They decided to roll the dice and let him try both.

Ohtani debuted, and it was like the baseball world woke up. The media couldn’t get enough. Finally, something new to talk about. The hot-take machines went into overdrive. Ohtani faltered a bit at first, even thought about giving up the dream of being a two-way player. But slowly, he found his stride—racking up strikeouts on the mound and launching homers over the wall.

Fast forward, and now we’re in a place no one could have imagined: Shohei Ohtani, not just excelling at both, but redefining what it means to be great. Wait—he’s one of the best pitchers in the game? On some nights, yes. One of the best hitters? Possibly, yes.

He did what nobody thought was possible. And in doing so, he began to obliterate the boundaries baseball had set for itself for a century. The unicorn revolution, indeed.

And still, the naysayers persisted. The ultra-conservatives, the gatekeepers. “But Ohtani can’t be the face of baseball,” they said. “He doesn’t even speak English.” Enter Stephen A. Smith, sports’ professional loudmouth, saying that Ohtani couldn’t be the face of baseball because of that language barrier. What a take, huh? That one aged like milk left out in the sun. If only Smith didn’t speak English—or any language for that matter—our sports-watching experience would be far more enjoyable.

Then came the MVPs. Then came the contract. Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, earning the largest deal in sports history. More validation. More hype. More people waiting for him to fail under the weight of expectations.

Then there was that weird Netflix-worthy scandal with his translator-slash-best friend, who held all his financial passwords. The media was ready to pounce. Surely, this was the unraveling they had been waiting for.

Ohtani’s response? He became the sixth player in MLB history to join the 40/40 club—40 home runs, 40 stolen bases. The pinnacle of offensive greatness, right?

But he didn’t stop there.

Yesterday, Ohtani went 6 for 6, belting a career-high 3 home runs in a single game, to go along with two stolen bases, two doubles, and an astounding 10 RBIs. And in that crazed blur, Ohtani achieved 50-50 in the same game. He even pushed it to 51-51 if you want to get technical.

Once again, Ohtani has set the world on fire. And not just the baseball world. LeBron James chimed in. So did Patrick Mahomes. So did countless voices acknowledging the real-time greatness unfolding before our eyes.

For the uninitiated, outsiders might wonder what the big deal is. Well, baseball is a game that has been going on for 200 years. Untold thousands have passed through. And Ohtani has emerged as the only person to register this level of greatness.

Baseball is a simple game, it’s been said. Throw the ball. Hit the ball. And in that simplicity, the game will judge you. It’s a game that all comes down to repetition and making split-second choices.

You see, baseball loves choices. Power or speed. Pick one. You can’t be both. That’s just how the game works.

But Ohtani, once again, chooses both.

This doesn’t diminish what Judge or Lindor are doing. They’re having amazing seasons in their own right. But Ohtani? He’s reframing the whole damn conversation. What does baseball excellence even look like now?

Judge and Lindor are incredible. But Shohei Ohtani is redefining the game.

And it’s not just baseball. Ohtani’s captured the world’s imagination. He’s transcending the sport itself, mentioned alongside names like Ronaldo and Messi. A global superstar in a sport that’s longed for one.

The fact that fierce debates are raging and waves of haters and trolls are rising, is proof that baseball is roaring back into culture. Let the national and international debates catch fire.

So, yeah, bring the hype. Bring the hate. Bring another MVP.

And with it, bring the haters and naysayers. It’s all voices that will raise the game higher.

Then sit back, as the dust settles on Ohtani’s newly minted, exclusive 50-50 club. Because when Ohtani steps onto the sacred ground of October baseball for the first time, history and the world will be watching.

And with history as our guide, we have no idea what Shohei Ohtani will do next.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Branding Vs. Brand Guidelines: What's the Real Difference?

in ,

Marketing is famously filled with jargon. The problem with jargon is that it quickly becomes meaningless. There are some foundational terms and concepts that are easily conflated and that lose sharpness over time. One fundamental term that I’ve seen have a broad range of interpretations is “branding” itself. Most commonly, I’ve seen people use “branding” to specifically refer to “brand guidelines.” However, in my experience brand guidelines are just a very small subset of what branding is.

Let’s dig in and see what the distinctions are.

What is Branding, Anyway?

First things first, let's define what branding actually is. At its core, branding is all about creating a meaningful, emotional connection between a brand and its audience. It's about making people feel something when they see your logo, hear your name, or encounter your products. Think of it as the heart and soul of your brand – the intangible magic that makes people choose you over the competition.

For example, Nike is a brand that has nailed the art of branding. It's not just about their iconic swoosh; it's about their "Just Do It" ethos. Nike has become synonymous with athletic achievement, determination, and the pursuit of excellence. When you wear Nike gear, you're not just wearing sports apparel; you're embodying a winning mindset.

Another standout example is Coca-Cola. Beyond their sugary beverages, Coca-Cola has created a timeless and universal message of happiness, togetherness, and sharing. Their branding campaigns, like the iconic "Share a Coke" campaign, have touched the hearts of millions worldwide.

Brand Guidelines: The Rulebook

Now, on to brand guidelines. These are like the brand's rulebook. They lay out the dos and don'ts, ensuring that your brand's visuals and voice are consistent across all touchpoints. Brand guidelines are essential to maintaining a cohesive image, but they're not the soul of your brand. They're more like the uniform your brand wears every day.

Let's take Old Spice as an example. Their brand guidelines ensure that no matter where you encounter Old Spice – whether it's in a TV commercial, a print ad, or on social media – you'll recognize that quirky, humorous style. The brand guidelines keep the Old Spice persona intact, but it's the brand itself that makes you smile.

Harley-Davidson is another brand that knows the power of guidelines. Their brand is synonymous with freedom, rebellion, and the open road. While their guidelines ensure consistency in logo usage and typography, it's the brand's strong identity that makes owning a Harley a lifestyle choice. You can intellectually recognize the logo, but it’s the brand that makes you feel something.

Branding = Culture Relevance

So, why is it crucial to distinguish between branding and brand guidelines? Because understanding this difference can take your brand to a whole new level. You see, branding is what makes your brand relevant in culture. It's about tapping into the zeitgeist, reflecting societal values, and creating something that resonates with your audience on a deep, emotional level.

Think about Apple. It's not just a tech company; it's a cultural phenomenon. Apple's branding revolves around innovation, simplicity, and challenging the status quo. They've made owning an Apple product a statement about individuality and creativity. When you see someone with an iPhone, it's not just a phone; it's a symbol of a shared ethos.

Red Bull is another brand that's deeply ingrained in culture. Their branding is all about pushing the boundaries of what's possible. From extreme sports events to content creation, they've made "gives you wings" a lifestyle, not just a slogan.

Emotion = Fans

One of the most powerful and enduring things about branding is that it turns customers into fans. When you create a strong emotional bond with your audience, they become your biggest advocates. They'll wear your merchandise, share your content, and defend your brand in internet debates. That's the power of a brand that connects on a deeper level.

Take Nike again, for instance. Their emotional connection with fans goes beyond sports. When they released the "Dream Crazy" campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, they tapped into the broader cultural conversation about social justice. This move not only solidified their brand's values but also won them a legion of new fans who admired their bold stance.

Another example of this phenomenon is Disney. Disney's branding is all about nostalgia, magic, and storytelling. They've created a fan culture that spans generations. From Mickey Mouse to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney's branding is a masterclass in creating lifelong fans that keep coming back (and bring their kids with them).

When asked about the role of a brand, Dan Wieden distilled it down to “Move me, Dude!” That sums it up pretty well. If your branding isn’t making someone feel something, it’s time to rethink and find ways that it can.

The Takeaway

So, the next time a team member uses branding interchangeably with brand guidelines, you can offer this distinction. Brand guidelines are essential for maintaining consistency in design and voice, but branding is the heart and soul of your brand. It's about creating an emotional relationship, winning more fans, and becoming culturally relevant. When you get branding right, the guidelines become part of your daily work in delivering the magic of your brand to the world.

The TLDR: Branding is about emotions, connections, and culture. Brand guidelines? They're just the stewards and hosts who make sure the party goes smoothly.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.