Ad Game

Objectives

• train total agreement under pressure
• teach players to add instead of replace
• make group support visible
• push brainstorming into playable action

How To Explain It

Your job is to invent a ridiculous product and sell it like it already belongs in every store. Accept what gets offered, add the next useful piece, and keep building until the room can see the finished ad.

Teaching Notes

• Start with a product premise that is concrete enough to picture right away.
• Keep the campaign elements visible to the room so the group knows what still needs to be built.
• Coach players to say yes in behavior, not just in words. If they love an idea, they should perform as if they love it.
• Move the group out of talk and into demonstration as soon as enough material exists.

Pressure Points To Coach

• One player becomes the head writer and everyone else starts following. Why it matters: the game stops training ensemble agreement and turns into support for one person's choices.
• The group debates whether an idea is good. Why it matters: debate kills the pace that makes the exercise useful.
• Players keep describing the product but never show the ad. Why it matters: the audience sees process instead of payoff.
• The group freezes at the jingle. Why it matters: they start chasing quality instead of committing to the shared impulse.

Notes That Appear Directly In Source Material

• Truth in Comedy identifies Ad Game as a Del Close special used to teach "Yes, And."
• The documented build includes a product name, package design, slogan, spokesperson, and jingle.
• Keefe's applied-improv version keeps the same fast collaborative build while using the exercise with small groups at work.

One-Line Audience Intro

Name a product nobody has invented yet, and watch this group sell it like it should already be in every store in America.

Playing Notes

• Commit to the campaign as if it is obviously brilliant.
• Let the commercial happen as soon as the core pieces are there.
• Support the emerging spokesperson instead of fighting for equal spotlight in every beat.
• Treat the jingle as the payoff, not as a musical exam.

Staging Notes

• Keep the ensemble close enough that ideas can pass quickly.
• Step into product demonstrations and spokesperson moments clearly so the audience can read the shift.
• If the ad needs a package reveal, show it physically instead of only talking about it.

When To Wrap It Up

• End once the audience has seen the product, the sales angle, and the campaign identity.
• Do not keep extending the commercial after the best laugh or strongest jingle landing.

The archive's strongest source for Ad Game is Truth in Comedy (1994), which identifies it as a Del Close special and uses it to teach the agreement principle at the center of Chicago long-form training. Later sources show the game traveling beyond pure stage training. Stephen Keefe documents an applied-improv workplace variation under the name "Imaginary Ad Game," and The Applied Improvisation Mindset points back to Del Close's Ad Game as a useful exercise for group agreement. That record supports a clear through-line: the game starts as a Del Close teaching tool and then gets reused in applied and educational contexts because its collaborative mechanics transfer easily.