Marketing & Growth

Fastvertising

Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile made an ad in six hours. A Twitter user joked about wanting to be in

By Conor Healy

March 23, 2026

Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile made an ad in six hours. A Twitter user joked about wanting to be in a commercial. Reynolds’ team saw it trending, wrote a script in the car on the way to set, shot it, edited it, and published it the same day.

That’s fastvertising – advertising at the speed of culture. Brands responding to trends in hours instead of weeks. David Foley appeared in a Mint Mobile ad six hours after his tweet went viral.

Traditional campaigns take months. PACO Collective research shows 41% of marketers need 3-4 weeks just to launch a digital campaign from asset creation to execution. Only 3.6% can go live in under a week.

Culture moves in minutes now. Memes explode overnight and die by morning. Brands that respond in weeks miss the moment entirely. Fast advertising fixes this by matching the speed of social media.

Traditional Campaigns Are Too Slow

In 2026, culture doesn’t move in tidy cycles anymore. Audiences don’t engage with brands sporadically during campaign windows. They experience brands continuously across TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit.

The old model was campaign-based. Plan for months, launch for a few weeks, recap and analyze. Then plan the next one.

Culture shifts daily now. A brand silent for three months between campaigns becomes irrelevant. Audiences expect brands to show up when culture shifts, not weeks later with carefully planned responses.

Fastvertising means operational readiness to respond when trends happen. Brands participate strategically in cultural moments as they unfold, not through reactive posting or mindless trend-chasing.

PACO Collective calls it “sustained cultural dialogue” – brands remaining in ongoing conversation with culture instead of entering it periodically through big campaigns.

Ryan Reynolds Mastered It

Maximum Effort, the production company Ryan Reynolds co-founded, built its reputation on fast advertising. They produce commercials for Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile, and other Reynolds ventures in days or hours instead of months.

Aron North, Mint Mobile’s CMO since 2016, explains: “Real-time marketing campaigns are one important route forward for any brand looking to make a hard-hitting impact in today’s fast-moving and ever-evolving cultural landscape. Something that everyone is discussing today could be entirely forgotten by tomorrow.”

When Deadpool & Wolverine launched in July 2024, Maximum Effort created tie-in ads for multiple Reynolds brands within 24 hours of the film’s release. They matched the cultural conversation while it was happening.

Traditional agencies would have spent weeks planning those campaigns. By the time ads launched, the movie hype would have passed. Maximum Effort struck while attention was highest.

Speed Is Non-Negotiable

Hootsuite’s 2026 social media trends report states: “Speed is non-negotiable in 2026 – things move fast. Brands are expected to respond to cultural happenings almost instantly, as algorithmic shifts reward the sameness of content in the wake of a viral moment.”

Algorithms favor brands that jump on trends immediately. When a meme goes viral, platforms boost content related to it for 12-48 hours. After that, the algorithm moves on. Brands responding three weeks later get zero visibility.

This creates pressure. Marketing teams used to having weeks for creative development now need same-day turnaround. The infrastructure for slow campaigns doesn’t support fast advertising.

Some brands can’t adapt. Legal review takes two weeks. Their creative approval process involves five stakeholders. Their production requires external vendors with 10-day lead times.

Fast advertising requires different operational structures. Pre-approved messaging frameworks. In-house creative teams. Streamlined approval processes. Authority pushed down to people monitoring trends in real time.

How to Execute Fast Advertising

First, people constantly monitoring culture. Someone watching TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram for emerging trends. This isn’t casual scrolling. It’s active research identifying moments worth responding to.

Second, creative teams who can execute fast. Maximum Effort writes scripts in cars on the way to shoots. Most agencies need three rounds of revisions over two weeks.

Third, pre-approved brand guidelines allowing quick decisions. If every ad needs C-suite approval, you can’t move in hours. Teams need frameworks letting them act within brand standards without checking up.

Fourth, relationships with production resources ready to move immediately. Reynolds’ team could shoot, edit, and publish in six hours because they had standing relationships with crew and editors.

Fifth, acceptance that not every execution will be perfect. Fast advertising trades some polish for speed. A slightly rough ad published when trends peak outperforms a perfect ad published after everyone moved on.

Why Most Brands Fail at This

Constant monitoring is exhausting. Someone needs to be online all the time watching for opportunities. That’s expensive and burns people out.

Fast turnaround limits complexity. You can’t produce elaborate campaigns in hours. Fast advertising works for simple executions – tweets, short videos, basic graphics. It doesn’t work for productions requiring weeks of planning.

Many brands can’t connect to every trend. A financial services company jumping on dance memes looks desperate. Fast advertising only works when the brand naturally fits the cultural moment.

Trends are fickle. Most don’t live up to hype. Brands waste resources chasing trends that die before ads publish. The success rate is low. For every Ryan Reynolds win, there are dozens of failed attempts nobody saw.

Quality suffers under time pressure. Rushed creative often lands flat or misses nuance. One poorly executed fast ad can damage brand reputation more than missing a trend entirely.

Who Does It Well

Ryan Reynolds and Maximum Effort obviously lead this space. Their entire business model is fast advertising for multiple brands.

Nara Aziza Smith’s Marc Jacobs collaboration showed how creators and brands can combine for fastvertising. She “baked” a Marc Jacobs tote bag in a cooking video, connecting food content with fashion in ways traditional ads wouldn’t.

Zara and H&M built business models on fast fashion – getting runway designs into stores in weeks. They apply the same speed to advertising, responding to fashion trends while competitors plan next season.

South Park famously produces episodes in six days to stay current with news. Their advertising follows the same model – respond now or miss relevance.

Wendy’s Twitter account became famous for roasting competitors and jumping on trends with fast, witty replies. They built a brand personality through real-time engagement.

Two-Week Turnarounds Don’t Work Anymore

Brands either do traditional campaigns taking months or fast advertising happening in hours/days. The middle ground – two-week turnaround campaigns – doesn’t work anymore.

Culture moves too fast for two-week cycles but not so fast you need same-day responses for everything. The mismatch creates awkwardness. Brands publish ads about trends that peaked 10 days ago and feel outdated.

This forces a choice. Invest in infrastructure for fast advertising or stick with traditional long-form campaigns. Trying both halfway succeeds at neither.

Most brands choose traditional campaigns because that’s what they know. Fast advertising requires operational changes most aren’t willing to make.

AI Changes The Game

AI is accelerating fastvertising. Tools can now generate creative concepts in minutes. AI writes copy, creates visuals, edits video faster than human teams.

PACO Collective’s 2026 report notes brands using AI for rapid creative production. What took days now takes hours. What took hours now takes minutes.

But AI-generated content often looks generic. Audiences can spot it. The speed advantage matters less when output feels soulless.

The winning combination appears to be AI for production speed plus human oversight for brand voice and cultural understanding. Let AI handle technical execution while humans make strategic decisions about which trends matter and how to respond.

Fastvertising Becomes Mandatory

Fast advertising becomes baseline expectation, not competitive advantage. Audiences expect brands to respond in real time. When brands don’t show up, the absence is noticeable.

Every brand doesn’t need Ryan Reynolds-level execution. But brands need ability to participate in culture when relevant moments arise.

For small brands with limited resources, pick moments carefully. Jump on three trends annually that perfectly align with brand instead of chasing everything.

For large brands, build infrastructure supporting fast responses when opportunities appear. Hire teams monitoring culture. Streamline approvals. Develop relationships with fast-moving production resources.

Big product launches still need planned campaigns. But ongoing cultural participation through fast advertising becomes mandatory for relevance.

Brands that can’t adapt face irrelevance. Audiences won’t wait weeks for brands to join conversations. They’ll engage with brands moving at culture’s speed and forget the rest.