creative-director-skill

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Created in collaboration with Paul Deadcough.

An AI creative director that generates advertising concepts using world-class methodologies, scores them against Cannes/D&AD-calibrated criteria, recursively refines until the quality threshold is reached, and calibrates every idea against a library of 571 legendary campaigns to detect saturation and ensure originality.

Not a brainstorming toy. A structured creative process that mirrors how top agencies (Droga5, Wieden+Kennedy, Mother) actually work — insight before ideas, methodology over free association, honest evaluation over flattery, calibration against the canon over invention from zero.

What's New in v2.0

• 571-case library with full Insight / Mechanic / Why-it-worked / Steal structure on every card
• 17-axis frontmatter schema — every card tagged across pattern (P01-P18), industry, format, emotion (Tier 1/2/3), budget, idea_type (Pollard 7-level), awards, and more
• 6 MOCs (Maps of Content) for fast lookup by pattern, emotion, format, industry, budget, and chronological index
• 4-point case library integration in workflow — priming before generation, originality empirical cap, RESTART case-soaking, pattern calibration before exit
• 3 maintenance scripts (Python via uv) — schema validation, MOC generation, graph wikilinks
• Pollard 7-level idea taxonomy replacing the previous 3-level system
• 3-tier emotion hierarchy with 30+ specific emotion values
• Activation toolkit with 9 formats and the Non-advertising vs Execution test
• Pre-Mortem template before final delivery

Quality reviewed via skill-conductor: 41/50 production-grade (Discovery 7/10, Clarity 9/10, Efficiency 7/10, Robustness 8/10, Completeness 10/10).

What It Does

Feed it a brief in any format — text, voice transcript, PDF, raw notes — and it runs a full creative cycle:

1. INTAKE — extracts the brief's DNA: product, audience, objectives, constraints + classifies the required idea level using Pollard 7-level taxonomy (business / brand / tagline / advertising / campaign / non_advertising / execution)
2. INSIGHT — mines consumer insights using 7 proven techniques (Mark Pollard, JTBD, Tension Spotting, HMW, Abstraction Laddering)
3. IDEATION — primes against the canon (scans 5-7 cases from the relevant MOC), then generates 8-12 ideas using 3 methods from different categories (structural × associative × disruptive), rotating between 20+ methodologies, with a Tension test on each
4. EVALUATE + REFINE — scores against 6 weighted criteria + HumanKind + Grey Scale, then recursively improves; Originality is capped empirically by case-library saturation (3+ canonical cases of the same mechanic → cap at 7); when stuck, RESTARTs through case-soaking (read 8-12 canonical cards, remix allowed); Pattern Calibration + Pre-Mortem before exit
5. ARTICULATE — outputs in a presentation-ready format (one-pager, top-3, campaign platform, or quick response)

You can also enter at any phase: jump to insight mining, evaluate an existing idea, or generate concepts from a known insight.

Why This Exists

Most AI "creative" tools generate ideas by free association — producing volume without structure. The result: hundreds of mediocre concepts that nobody can evaluate, often unknowingly recycling work that already exists.

This skill enforces the discipline that separates award-winning work from filler:

• Insight-first — no ideation without a validated consumer tension
• Structural methods — SIT, TRIZ, SCAMPER, Bisociation, Synectics, not "give me 10 ideas"
• Empirical originality — every idea is checked against 571 real campaigns; if 3+ canonical cases use the same mechanic, originality is capped, not subjectively claimed
• Honest scoring — calibrated against real Cannes winners, with anti-inflation rules
• Recursive refinement — weak criteria get targeted improvement using different methods each pass
• Case-soaking on plateau — when ideas plateau, the skill reads 8-12 canonical cards to re-train its sense for what a strong insight feels like; combining/remixing existing patterns is explicitly allowed (this is how Cannes-grade work is built)
• Kill Your Darlings — the skill argues against its own favorite ideas to test their strength
• Pre-Mortem — before delivery, simulates failure and surfaces the most likely failure modes

What's Inside

creative-director/
├── SKILL.md                                  # Core skill — phase router + 5-phase workflow
├── assets/
│   └── output-templates.md                   # 4 presentation formats
├── scripts/                                  # Python via uv (PEP 723 inline deps)
│   ├── validate_schema.py                    # Frontmatter validation against tag-schema
│   ├── generate_mocs.py                      # Builds 6 MOCs from cards
│   └── generate_links.py                     # Adds Related sections (idempotent)
└── references/
    ├── tag-schema.md                         # Single source of truth — 17-axis frontmatter contract
    ├── idea-taxonomy.md                      # Pollard 7-level taxonomy
    ├── emotion-hierarchy.md                  # Tier 1/2/3 + 30+ specific emotion values
    ├── activation-toolkit.md                 # 9 activation formats + Non-ad vs Execution test
    ├── legendary-patterns.md                 # P01-P18 mechanics + Pre-Mortem template
    ├── methods-catalog.md                    # 20 creative methodologies as executable cards
    ├── method-selection-matrix.md            # Task → method routing + rotation rules
    ├── insight-mining.md                     # 7 insight discovery techniques
    ├── scoring-calibration.md                # Detailed rubrics + calibration anchors
    ├── creative-constitution.md              # 3-layer evaluation system + feedback rules
    ├── storytelling-frameworks.md            # 6 narrative frameworks for advertising
    └── legendary-campaigns/                  # 571-case library
        ├── README.md                         # Library guide
        ├── MOC-index.md                      # All 571 cards by year DESC
        ├── MOC-pattern.md                    # Grouped by P01–P18 (18 mechanics)
        ├── MOC-emotion.md                    # Grouped by emotion_tier (3 → 2 → 1)
        ├── MOC-format.md                     # Grouped by category (film/integrated/stunt_pr/...)
        ├── MOC-industry.md                   # Grouped by industry vertical
        ├── MOC-budget.md                     # Grouped by budget (low/medium/high)
        └── cards/                            # 571 individual cards (flat namespace)
            └── {id}.md

Case Library

571 advertising campaigns from 1950–2025, tagged across 17 axes, with full structural analysis on every card.

Card structure

Each card has YAML frontmatter (17 axes — see references/tag-schema.md) + 4 sections:

• Insight — the human truth the campaign exploits (one sentence)
• Mechanic — what was actually executed
• Why it worked — psychological / cultural / structural reason
• Steal — pattern-level borrow strategy
• Related — auto-generated wikilinks (pattern hub + 2 sibling cards + emotion match)

Tag schema (17 axes)

id, title, brand, agency, year, country, region, industry, pattern[] (P01–P18), category, idea_type (Pollard 7-level), involvement, channel, duration, goal[], budget, emotion[], emotion_tier (1/2/3), insight_domain, media_epoch, awards[], quality_score (HumanKind 1–10), scalability, risk.

18 patterns (P01–P18)

Format as Idea · Enemy or Conflict · Behavior Inversion · Brand as Activist · Cultural Hijack · Limitation as Power · Invisible Brand · Craft as Message · User as Co-Author · Serialization & Ritual · Absurd as Carrier · Social Experiment · Truth Telling · Product as Proof · Benefit Hyperbole · Long-form Drama · Design as Idea · Tech as Canvas

Lookup strategies

# Browse by axis — open the matching MOC