Imaginary Ad Game
Imaginary Ad Game is a creative applied exercise in which groups create a complete advertising campaign for a product that does not exist -- then present it with the confident enthusiasm of a real pitch. Participants name the product, invent its features and benefits, create a tagline, and present the campaign as though the product were entirely real and the benefits entirely compelling. The exercise trains creative confidence, the ability to advocate for an idea before it is fully formed, and the improvisational skill of amplifying imagined value.
Structure
Setup
Small groups of three to five participants are given a product brief: an absurd, impossible, or contradictory product -- a hat for dogs that plays jazz, a single-use umbrella for fish, a subscription service for disappearing socks. The group has a short time period to create a campaign.
Campaign Creation
The group develops the campaign's essential elements: a product name, three to five invented features and their benefits, a tagline, and a brief visual or verbal advertising concept. The features should be amplified to their most extraordinary form -- not "this hat keeps dogs warm" but "this hat has been scientifically proven to increase a dog's confidence by 300%."
The Pitch
Each group presents their campaign to the full group, delivering it with the confidence and enthusiasm of a real advertising pitch. The presentation is treated as real: there is no winking, no breaking of the premise.
Audience Response
The listening groups may respond as potential investors, clients, or consumers -- asking questions about the product with equal seriousness.
Conclusion
After all groups have pitched, the facilitator debriefs on the creative and communication skills the exercise developed.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Imaginary Ad Game develops creative confidence, the ability to generate and advocate for ideas quickly, and the skill of amplifying imagined value with conviction. It also trains the ability to commit fully to a premise -- delivering it with seriousness rather than irony.
How to Explain It
"Your product doesn't exist, and your job is to sell it as though it's the most important thing anyone has ever invented. Real features. Real benefits. Real enthusiasm. If you start apologizing for it, the game is over."
Scaffolding
Provide a warm-up round with a simpler product before assigning the absurd brief. This allows participants to establish the campaign format before the creative difficulty increases.
Common Pitfalls
Groups sometimes make the product's absurdity the content of the pitch -- playing the joke rather than playing the campaign. The coaching note is that the funniest pitches are delivered with complete seriousness. The comedy comes from full commitment, not from the group indicating that they know the product is ridiculous.
In Applied Settings
Learning Objectives
In applied settings, Imaginary Ad Game develops creative confidence -- particularly the capacity to advocate for an idea before it is fully formed or fully evidenced. The exercise addresses the professional habit of withholding ideas until they are completely thought through, and trains the alternative: generating and communicating the value of an emerging idea with conviction.
Workplace Transfer
The exercise transfers to early-stage ideation, pitch presentations, creative brainstorming, and any professional context where advocating for a not-yet-proven idea is required. Participants who have practiced Imaginary Ad Game report greater comfort with presenting underdeveloped ideas and with amplifying the genuine potential of a concept rather than hedging it into something risk-free and dull.
Facilitation Context
Imaginary Ad Game is used in innovation workshops, design thinking programs, pitch training, and creative team development. It works well with groups of 8 to 24, organized into small working teams. The exercise is particularly effective early in a creative session to establish the norm that ideas are worth advocating before they are complete.
Debrief Framing
Ask participants: "What did full commitment to the product change about the pitch? When in your work do you hold back an idea because it isn't fully formed yet? What would change if you advocated for it at that early stage instead?"
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Related Exercises
Fake Ads
Fake Ads is an applied improv exercise in which small teams create and perform a thirty-second television advertisement for an imaginary, impossible, or absurd product, including a dramatized pitch and an original jingle. The exercise uses the familiar format of commercial advertising as a scaffold for rapid creative collaboration, idea generation, and performance under time pressure.
We Can Sell Anything
Teams collaboratively pitch an absurd or mundane product using improvised salesmanship, developing persuasion, collaboration, and creative thinking.
Create (and Sell) a Product That Can't Be Sold
Create (and Sell) a Product That Can't Be Sold is an applied improvisation exercise in which groups design and pitch a product that is inherently unsellable: ethically problematic, physically impossible, commercially absurd, or so niche as to have no viable market. Groups develop the product concept, a marketing campaign with slogan and target demographic, and present the full pitch to the group. The exercise develops creative thinking, persuasive communication, and comfort with absurdity.
Bad Ad Product Game
Groups create a product and ad campaign for something that does everything wrong. By revolving an object to view its weird sides, players discover creativity through inversion.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Imaginary Ad Game. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/imaginary-ad-game
The Improv Archive. "Imaginary Ad Game." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/imaginary-ad-game.
The Improv Archive. "Imaginary Ad Game." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/imaginary-ad-game. Accessed March 17, 2026.
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