When it comes to advertising campaigns, it’s not easy for small businesses, startups, or nonprofits to compete with bigger players who have more resources. Too often, these cash-strapped organizations end up either far overspending with limited results or creating a subpar campaign that doesn’t have the desired effect.
But with AI becoming so powerful, do those really need to be the only choices? Damon Maddison, the mastermind behind AdAgency.co, doesn’t think so.
AdAgency.co is the New Zealand’s first AI ad agency. Oh, and did we mention that it’s completely free?
The Canterbury, New Zealand-based Damon started AdAgency.co as a labor of love. “Our goal is to democratize advertising, providing the tools for small businesses and startups to compete creatively with the big players.”
The concept is simple. You head to AdAgency.co, where you’re greeted by a suave, Don Draper lookalike. After introductions, you brief in your requirements to the AI. From there, it spins up various options for an engaging ad campaign, offering insights, ideas, and even taglines.
After settling on your favorite, you can start crafting ads. It’s like having your own agency on retainer any time. Not ready to create just yet? Head to the Showcase for inspiration. There, you can view real campaigns created with AdAgency.co.
AdAgency.co is such a cool idea for a side hustle that we had to ask Damon what led him to this idea. “I have a background in advertising and design, and I love the creative process and coming up with ideas. AI presented a new frontier—how do you replicate human creativity?” he said. “Experimenting and playing around with that has been really fun and has helped me, as a creative, understand myself better.”
Currently, AdAgency.co is still a side project for Damon, and finding time to work on it while also juggling life’s demands can be tough. “My biggest obstacle is time—balancing the important things, family and work, then finding snippets of free time to build AdAgency.co,” he said.
“It’s tricky—I often just have an hour or two free at midnight. AdAgency.co is my creative outlet, and I have so much fun building it up layer by layer. My goal is to keep it fun and keep pushing its limits. I’d love to do it full-time, but if it’s destined to stay a side hustle, that’s all good with me.”
With such a useful tool, finding new users hasn’t been difficult. “I’m lucky in that my website helps me with this,” Damon explained. “It’s all about coming up with fun ideas to catch people’s attention and then creating engaging content to keep the conversation going, including being active in the community, sharing unique perspectives, and staying topical.”
Choosing .co as the domain name made a lot of sense, since it’s an extension that’s well known among entrepreneurs and other creators. “It’s short, popular, and has a nice startup vibe,” he said.
Since launching, it’s been exciting for Damon to see the various ads different businesses and organizations have created using the platform, particularly a charity that helps children. For others thinking of starting their own side projects, he’s got one piece of advice: “Keep pushing. You only lose if you give up.”
