About Ad Legends
The Democratization of Advertising
For decades, game-changing advertising has been locked away behind the gilded doors of massive agencies, accessible only to the world's largest brands with the deepest pockets.
Now there's AI. But instead of democratizing creativity, it unleashed a flood of 'bAIdvertising.' A proliferation of generic, forgettable ads that skip the most crucial ingredient of all: a Big Idea.
We knew there had to be a better way. And it started out like any idea… with a simple "What if?"
What if instead of using AI to replace human creativity, you supercharged it with the greatest creative minds in advertising? Then made their thinking available to any brand, any size, anywhere in the world.
An Idea Between Brothers
The story of Ad Legends begins with twin brothers who chose different career paths. Steve Metcalf became a tech entrepreneur, building and exiting a global technology company. His brother Dave Metcalf rose to Executive Creative Director at one of the world's biggest ad agencies.
For years, Steve the CEO would call on Dave the Creative Director for ideas, always struck by how the traditional agency model made top-tier talent so inaccessible and expensive.
Dave had just parted ways with his agency, Ogilvy. And Steve, fresh off founding the Imagine AI Live conference, was immersed in the explosive potential of AI to transform business models. The two met, and the concept of Ad Legends was born.
"I went to visit Steve and told him I had just left Ogilvy. He immediately responded, 'Great. I've always wanted to go into business with my twin brother.' And I said, 'You know what, I always have too!' As kids, we were really creative when we put our heads together. Now we're doing it again."— Dave Metcalf, Co-Founder
From Coffee to Prototype in 30 Minutes
A few months later, the idea began to solidify. In the time it took to finish a morning coffee, they had built a basic, working prototype of the Ad Legends app. They fed it a sample brand, and it perfectly mimicked the ad agency strategic process, generating a very in-depth creative brief in minutes.
The next step was to build the fun part… infusing it with real life top-tier creative talent that could generate big ideas off the brief. Just like a traditional ad agency does.
"I told Dave we should call it Ad Legends, and we'll train it on the creative minds of you and other high-level creative directors in the business. He was flattered, but said, 'If we're naming it that, we need to shoot for the stars and get the most legendary creatives possible."— Steve Metcalf, Co-Founder
Winning Over the First Legend
The next step was to bring in another creative force: Vince Cook, a longtime friend and decorated creative veteran from legendary agencies like Leo Burnett and BBDO.
Over New Year's Eve, they showed Vince the prototype. Having spent over 20 years in the business, Vince was skeptical of any AI tool that could even come close to replicating the complex art of human creativity. But when he saw the app in action, he was blown away.
"The part that blew my mind was the strategy. I've seen thousands of creative briefs in my career that take months to make and usually ignore them anyway."— Vince Cook, Co-Founder
Vince picked his jaw up off the floor as the app generated powerful ideas for a charity that he and his wife were involved with. Always a great judge of creativity, he suddenly realized this wasn't just another execution tool – this was about to change everything and could accelerate the entire creative process from months to minutes.
He agreed to join Ad Legends as the "Third Twin" and came on as a Co-Founder and Co-Chief Creative Officer along with Dave, his longtime creative partner over the years. Together they set the creative to new heights for the app, turning the execution dial up to 11 and went on the hunt for more creative legends.
While Steve, the CEO and Chief AI Officer, continued to lead the app's development with new features and capabilities under the creative guidance of Dave and Vince.
An Ad Agency In Your Pocket
Today, Ad Legends is a fully functional AI-powered creative platform supercharged with more than a dozen legendary advertising creatives and counting. Each Legend's creative philosophy, approach, visual style, and signature lens informs all the ideas, making Ad Legends the only app that leads with the one that all the other AI ad tools forgot – the power of a Big Idea.
We Start with Strategy
Unlike tools that jump straight to execution, we begin where all great advertising does: with an airtight brief and a powerful central concept. Our platform orchestrates specialized AI agents to handle strategy, ideation, and creative development, just like a real-world agency.
Human-Infused AI
The soul of our platform is the distilled creative essence of advertising's greatest minds. We work with legendary creatives – people who have built billion-dollar brands – to train our AI. They also participate in the process, providing the critical human taste-making that ensures our output is not just fast, but brilliant.
Unprecedented Speed and Value
The traditional agency process can take months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars just to arrive at a few ideas. Ad Legends delivers award-winning concepts, tailored to your brand, in minutes – for less than the price of a dinner with an ad agency.
Bringing Legendary Creativity to Everyone
We are bringing the creative firepower once reserved for Nike, Apple, Disney, and Gatorade to everyone. Our creative output is endorsed by an All-Star roster of the greatest living Ad Legends in the world – including Jimmy Smith, Cheryl Berman, Rick Boyko, Janet Champ, Steffan Postaer, Lewis Williams, Ned Crowley and Donna Weinheim.
They are not only investors, but advisors who provide creative guidance and a standard of excellence our app must adhere to. They all play an active role and have helped to define our mission:
We believe in the irreplaceable power of human creativity in AI.
We are building the future of advertising the only way it should be built: with human intelligence, human emotion, and legendary human ideas.
From a simple conversation to a creative revolution
It started with a conversation between twin brothers in Jacksonville, Illinois. It became a prototype over coffee that created the best brief a creative legend had ever seen. Now, it's a revolution. The founders of Ad Legends, ready to change the game.
The Founders
Tech entrepreneur and AI pioneer who built and exited a global industrial technology company. Founder of the Imagine AI Live conference.
Executive Creative Director who rose to the highest levels of the advertising world, including at Ogilvy.
Join the Revolution
The era of slow, expensive, and inaccessible creative is over. Whether you're a brand ready to build your legacy or a creative legend who wants to define the future, there's a place for you here.