The Skydiving Gorilla That Gave The Marketing Industry a Root Canal
Small audacious businesses are showing how the game is played without big budgets. Did you see this audacious LA dental dentist showed what the future holds? It's both scary and freaking amazing.
In Brief
When a gorilla skydives out of a plane to sell dental implants, the internet laughs—but the marketing industry should freak out. Kind of.
Because this wasn’t just a one-off viral gag. It was a strategic, low-cost, high-leverage campaign that exposed the biggest lie the creative industry still tells itself:
“High production value equals high effectiveness.”
Spoiler: It doesn’t.
Not anymore.
This Campaign Didn’t Just Work—It Worked Because It Broke the Rules
Let’s start with the basics. A Los Angeles dentist Sargon Dental used AI only to create a short, absurd video: a gorilla in a plane, cracking jokes and skydiving, eventually pitching dental implants. The production budget was dinner money. The media spend? Zero. Distribution? TikTok, Instagram, and the deranged engine of internet shareability.
Like it or not…
It’s not good despite being weird.
It’s good because it’s weird.
It’s unexpected. Shareable. Anti-advertising in a way that grabs the lizard brain by the gums.
This wasn’t polished. It wasn’t tested. It wasn’t passed through 17 layers of stakeholder signoff.
“The world is not suffering from a shortage of quality creative work. It’s suffering from an abundance of risk aversion.”
Someone wise
Why This Moment Matters
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Production value has been commoditized. The technical magic that once justified $500k line items and entire boutique studios can now be bought for $30/month and typed into a prompt.
The biggest expense now isn’t lighting.
It’s ideas with balls.
Is it tasteful?
Does it drive people mad?
Just ask Genre.ai—an AI-only agency making network-quality ads that air during Disney programming. One of their latest: a national ad for Kalshi, fully AI-generated. It's not just that the tools are good. It’s that they’re good enough—and the average consumer doesn’t care how it was made if it makes them laugh, feel, or act.
So what happens when:
A dentist makes better creative than your agency?
An AI agency beats your studio to a national TV spot?
A gorilla with an “AI GoPro” gets more ROI than your 60-page pitch deck?
You get an industry in an identity crisis.
Or…
Perhaps not.
Personally, I believe brands will continue to hire people with insights and strategic depth, and creative imagination, skills, and taste.
I don’t believe agencies are going anywhere, to be honest.
Most people, dentist or not, will never write ads like this, not have the balls to execute. They did what agencies always wanted them to do: to stand out and be different, to connect, to entertain, to stand for something, and to be bold in doing so.
Let’s Break Down What This Could Mean
1. For Ad Agencies:
You are no longer selling “the work.”
You are selling taste, guts, insight, speed, and POV.
And if you don’t have a POV beyond “Look how shiny our reel is,” you are replaceable.
Not by AI, but by a dentist with an imagination and a Canva Pro/Veo3 account.
If you never do anything odd, you never do anything brilliant.
2. For Production Companies:
Your existential threat is not AI.
It’s mid-market clients deciding they don’t need you at all.
When a dentist can bypass three layers of creative hierarchy and get 100x the reach, what happens to your line-item justifications?
You must now be either:
A creative partner who brings insight + execution, or
A utility that gets cheaper and faster every quarter.
Choose wisely.
3. For Brands and CMOs:
Stop asking for “polished” and start asking for “memorable.”
The brands winning in 2026 and beyond are the ones with the courage to sound human, move fast, and take smart risks. The gorilla video isn’t a fluke. It’s the beginning of a trend: authentic chaos beats sterile control.
Every brand should now be asking:
What is my version of a gorilla jumping out of a plane?
Where am I hiding behind polish instead of taking risks?
Who do I need to empower to push the boundaries?
TL;DR: The Creative Class Is Being Rewritten
This dentist didn’t break the internet with a big budget.
He did it by understanding the moment.
Attention is cheap.
Novelty is rare. Originality is even more rare.
Imagination is everything.
So what’s the takeaway?
Creativity is no longer about access. It’s about audacity.
Steal this:
“In every era, the most valuable skill is the ability to make people feel something.”“Marketing logic will get you to safe. Creative illogic gets you remembered.”
Final Question:
Will you have the audacity to break the rules and do something original in your category?
Well, that was always the question, wasn’t it?
Only now you cannot blame “budget”.
You can still blame “lack of time”, and “lack of ideas”.
And that’s why turning to agencies and production studios is still a great idea ;)
 | A guest post by
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