Nick Tasker

Founder and Commercial Director at SLAI Studio — on how a viral KitKat spec poster opened doors, getting big brands to notice your work without pitching, AI commercials, and why a great ad takes much more than a clever prompt

Watch on YouTube SLAI Studio
25 minutes
AI Commercials · Spec Work · Creative Direction

About the Guest

Nick Tasker — Founder of SLAI Studio

Nick Tasker is a creative director with over two decades of experience and award-winning work. Trained in graphic design, he has worked as both copywriter and art director — writing brand manifestos, poster headlines and TV scripts

Today he directs commercials made entirely in AI for big and smaller brands across the US and the UK, and gets new business only through inbound — by creating work and posting it on LinkedIn

20+ Years in Advertising
creative director, copywriter and art director, now directing AI-made TV commercials
Viral KitKat Spec Poster
a little idea made with a student in 2021 that got shared all around the world
Up to $10K in AI Credits
spent on a single 30-second commercial — rerolling shots until every frame works
Acting Agency Co-founder
he believes there will always be a place for real actors

Key Quotes

“

I think ultimately it’s what you put out. So it’s like you just have to create.

Nick Tasker
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There are loads and loads of people that can go and make you a 30-second video in AI. There are very few that can tell a story within say 30 seconds.

Nick Tasker
“

It's the classic thing. It takes 20 years and 5 minutes.

Nick Tasker

Episode Chapters

0:00 In This Episode 1:27 What Nick Is Proud Of 2:35 AI’s Impact on Work 4:50 Core Expertise 5:52 How to Attract Big Brands 8:50 Red Ocean of Competition 10:36 The Team Behind the Work 13:58 What AI Is Missing 20:29 The Antidote to AI 23:02 What’s Next?

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of One Thing That Worked is produced by Beverly Media. Featuring entrepreneurs and podcasters who share the one decision, strategy, or habit that had the biggest impact on their business.
0:00 In This Episode
Host How do you become someone who the brands big brands Coca-Cas of the world or Nikes of the world or whoever want to work with?
Nick You just have to create. I mean people getting into this or people getting into creative in general like I’m more it’s easier now than ever but you just have to have ideas. is you have to make spec work or commercials or whatever and you just need to post it and hopefully it will go viral or it will get you noticed. I mean back in 2021 for example I did a spec poster for KitKat. It was a little idea and I actually did it with a student and we kind of worked on it together and it went super viral.
Host Hey everyone, welcome to One Thing That Worked. Today my guest is Nick Tasker who is a founder and commercial director at SLAI Studio. Nick, welcome to the show.
Nick Uh, thanks Serhiy. Thanks for having me.
Host It’s my pleasure. You’re my fellow creative and I mean I think I have so much to learn from you. You have over two decades of experience as a creative director winning awards of different kinds. So uh what are the things that
1:27 What Nick Is Proud Of
Host you are most proud of right now as as as what you’re doing?
Nick Um Oh yeah, thanks. Uh what am I most proud of right now? Well, I think I’m just Oh, pride is a funny thing, but I I I I try not to be too I try not to be too too proud. And actually, I think as with a lot of creative people, I’m more worrying about what I’m not doing right more than what I’m doing right. But I suppose I’m I’m very excited and about the the way everything’s changing. So, I’m directing an AI and I’m making commercials for um big, you know, big and smaller brands all over the world, across the US, across the UK, TV commercials, and everything’s being done in AI, which is uh it’s just super exciting to be um to be doing that. So, I’m I’m just kind of proud of I suppose I’m proud of all the clients that have put their faith in me, maybe.
Host Yeah. And you know as someone who has been writing and uh you know putting together these commercials for 20 years, how has your work changed with the evolution of AI with the you know the
2:35 AI’s Impact on Work
Host change in the in the technology in the last five or six years?
Nick Oh well it’s changed. I mean the the the process of so what I’ve what I’ve always done because this directing is a new thing for me. Um but what I’ve always done is uh we h we normally we have a problem you know a brand it could be a Coca-Cola or whatever and they have something that they want to say and my job is to figure out the what would what is the best way to say something you know maybe it’s a television or whatever. So, I’ve always used my mind ultimately, and I still use my mind to come up with the ideas, but what I’m doing now is creating um instead of just writing scripts for TV commercials, I’m actually able to create them. And so, all those ideas that I’ve been coming up with for that 20-y year period that we keep talking about, um I’m actually able to go, let’s let’s just make it. It’s all so much easier to make it. And and as creatives and creative directors, we spend most like 99% of of our ideas never make it into reality and we never get to see them. And and usually, you know, a lot of the more most ideas are watered down before they make it onto TV screens. Could be because of budget, could be because of fear and all these different things. And so it’s extremely liberating to
Host Is that like the case? Is there like a huge graveyard of things that just haven’t seen the world?
Nick Yeah, exactly. I mean, a lot of I mean mo a lot of people hate advertising and I think most people that write ads have actually had loads of great ideas, but the problem is is get actually getting those to ones out into the world. Um, but yeah, we call it the bottom drawer. So, you know, there’s always a bottom drawer of of ideas that never quite made it for one candy bar, but they might be good for another candy bar or whatever. Um, so yeah, and as we get less and less time, but now, um, I’m actually taking ideas from other creatives and bringing them to life as opposed to I I’m not always coming up with the ideas myself. It’s kind of 50/50 now.
Host So, who are you in your core? Are you a storyteller? Are you a copywriter? Like if you were to describe yourself, like what is your core expertise?
4:50 Core Expertise
Nick It’s a funny one because classically in advertising you do have the copywriter and the art director, the the pictures and the and the words, but I’ve actually always done both. Um I never there’s been times where I’ve worked in a team and I’ve been the writer and other times I’ve worked in a team and I’ve been the art director and other times where I do both. So I I was trained in graphic design, so I understand, you know, typography and color theory and all that that sort of stuff, the visual stuff. But actually probably um most of my most of my bookings as a creative and creative director were actually ended up being in writing. So that could be writing brand manifestos or writing silly headlines for posters and obviously writing scripts for for films.
Host Okay. My my my my show is called One Thing That Worked. And I think the um obvious thing I want to ask you is
5:52 How to Attract Big Brands
Host how do you become someone uh who the brands big brands Coca-Cas of the world or Nikes of the world or whoever want to work with.
Nick Ah well uh I think ultimately it’s what you put out. So it’s like you just have to create I mean people getting into this or people getting into creative in general like and and more it’s easier now than ever but you you just have to have ideas you have to make spec work or commercials or whatever and you just need to post it and you know hope hopefully it will go viral or and it will get you a bit it will get you noticed. I mean, back in um 2021, for example, I did a a commercial, not a commercial, I did a uh spec poster for KitKat which um went really really viral and it was just and it was just a it was a little idea and I did it with a I actually did it with a student and we kind of worked on it together and it went super viral. It was a Zoom. It was it was it was just two two little Kit Kats and it was like um you you can look it up.
Host that Zoom ad we will put it in post production so people understand what we’re talking about.
Nick Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and so something like that gets you thousands and thousands of if you can crack it and then and from that opportunities come up. So for example I did some work um some concepts at one point for Lovehoney some posters and I just put them on LinkedIn and before you know it the marketing directors from the brand were contacting me and saying holy this is really cool.
Host Yeah. So you could do it without them asking for it. So you like can create something and and uh isn’t it like against violating author right or something?
Nick Well, look um my thing is do something. If you’re only posting, you know, let’s say you you make a a poster for Lovehoney, for example, and you think it’s fun, post it. Tag the brand. If they say, "Please can you take this down?" Take it down. But they might not, you know, usually if you make something great, people are happy. Um.
Host Wow.
Nick Because it’s free. It’s free advertising. I mean, the Kit Kat thing got like shared all around the world and like I didn’t get paid a penny for it, but it’s just a little bit of exposure. Um, and uh, yeah. So, so there’s that. And that’s just how I get business now as well. like we’ll create a commercial maybe for a band brand just post it on LinkedIn and other brands and sometimes um PR companies and all this they’ll see the work and sometimes they’ll they’ll want to share it and and so I actually don’t have any new business strategy or anything beyond beyond inbound.
Host This is this is really groundbreaking because um me myself I
8:50 Red Ocean of Competition
Host have a podcast production company and we do like a pretty big um chunk of work in terms of you know creating this trailers that will advertise the podcast you know and it’s a very creative work and um still the the work doesn’t speak for itself because it’s such a red ocean of competition you know and I think in your business it’s the name.
Nick Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’ve got to be you’ve got to be very good and strike a chord and just know what you want to do. So, for me, my stuff is all kind of visual comedy. Um, and it’s very specifically a format. It’s 30-second or 60-second TV commercials. The stuff that I’ve personally always loved, but it stops the scroll.
Host It’s not your I think you nailed how to capture the attention from the right uh from off of off the bat, right? Is this important to kind of in the first glance make it something irresistible?
Nick Well, look, apparently so. I’m actually pretty old school and I just do what I think is funny. I don’t I don’t analyze any of it. I just kind of go that’ll be funny. If it makes me laugh, then then I’ll do it. Or, you know, and it’s not just it’s not just funny. just I want every I want every frame to look striking or to be interesting. Um you know the example of the the commercial that I did recently with a chicken on a unicycle. It’s it’s just you know people haven’t seen a chicken riding a unicycle before. So it’s like oh that would be kind of fun. Um and so hopefully people will click and and watch it and comment on it.
Host Yeah. So uh how do you approach u something like that? How many people do you have uh who are helping you or it’s
10:36 The Team Behind the Work
Host only you and uh some AI software?
Nick Well to for the ideas like so coming up with the idea that’s just me and then most of the making is just me. It’s just me, S here in the office with a laptop and a load of different platforms, you know, that allow me to kind of create the So, for example, you know, how do I create the chicken and how do I create the unicycle and how do I put it together and that but they’re and they’re created on different AI uh platforms and then I kind of put it all together, edit it all together. And when we’re working on TV commercials and stuff, I have a little bit of help with some editors and VFX artists and sound designers and stuff like that. But um but the bulk of it is actually just me spending many many hours.
Host Yeah. But the gist of it all is to uh know how to tell the story. So from the technical perspective like same thing with my video editors, they use tokens on different uh websites to create these animations, but then you obviously have to have a skill to put it all together in some kind of like Adobe Premiere or some kind of soft, right? And but most importantly, it should be scripted really really brilliantly. So this is the proof is in the pudding in in the script basically.
Nick Yeah, to be honest, there’s like like with there are loads and loads of people that can go and make you a 30-second video in AI. Um, there are very few that can can tell a story within say 30 seconds. That is yeah, that is the skill. If if you know anyone wanting to do it, the advice would be go and I’ve got books here, but that you know go and learn how to direct, you know, how to tell that story. what is the shot selection. So for example in 30 seconds you might have a maximum of 17 shots and so you know where you want to start, where you want to end, what the what the message is and how you get through that story and tell that story. Um that is the key that is much harder than like prompting a a kind of you know something kind of funny and silly and making a quick video when there’s a brand involved as well. you need that full control and you need to, you know, they’re they’re often paying I mean even in AI the budgets are often in excess of six figures for 30 seconds worth of a film. So you like we’re we are talking um doing things doing things properly and you know I mean we spend you know maybe up to up to £10,000 just on credits.
Host Wow. Wow.
Nick Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So that I mean it can it can be much less than that but sometimes the the only thing to do is to reroll the shots many times. Um and so yeah we’ve we’ve just done a production um 30 second commercial and we kind of I think we were probably about $10,000 worth of credits on that one.
Host I I’ve checked your recent post where you had a little bit of a back and forth with people about the absence of a soul
13:58 What AI Is Missing
Host uh you know and AI and that AI will not replace.
Host Can you take it from here? What is your stance on this? Because I’m someone I don’t know man I don’t like the idea. I don’t like people who are, you know, trying to convince me that AI can do as good of a creative product as I my team can do. It I kind of get irritated because of that, you know, because I know that u the creative uh output of my people and you know their um I don’t know imagination imagination can be replaced can it? Do you see it? Do you know
Nick I I look I think when it there there are many cases where an AI’s output is better than a human output. I I do think that there are lot there are lots of examples of that and I think it that will only get better. My my point with the post was that you know let’s say you’ve got two actors in a scene. Um, what I don’t think AI will ever be able to do is to have like a backstory offscreen where the two actors are actually in a romantic relationship and we feel that tension or they’re really good friends and with the example of uh This Is England like the on on the set the camaraderie between all those actors and that’s there’s a certain magic and that I don’t believe will ever be recreated because of course like these AI actors or whatever like they are they’re just a reflection of what you’re telling them to do. So I which is why I don’t think it’s a problem in uh comedy funny silly ads where I’m trying to create commercials you know ideally as good as um the Old Spice Guy and those kinds of things. I don’t care what the actor’s backstory is or whatever in that. But when we’re talking about like really beautifully observed moments where you’re building you’re building characters over the period of like you know a 2hour movie or whatever I don’t think we’ll I think we’ll create some great stuff but I don’t think I think there’ll always be a place for real actors. Um yeah and I am actually also co-founder of a an acting agency as well so I do believe in acting and uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Host Yeah. But you know, but even when you’re creating a a simple design, I don’t know, for a thumbnail on YouTube, right? Uh I do have designers on my team and they tell me like, "Will you fire us?" because they’re they say that you know and I’m like no people if you think about a few steps ahead if you if you really take time to not only draw the design but check the backstory or the pre-story of what you’re creating for right this will always make you uh the choice for me to go with you not with AI um the problem is that some designers just only want to you know draw that’s it and I think these kind of technical skills are obsolete in even already, right?
Nick Yeah. Well, I don’t think it’s obsolete, but I I you know, I mean, I I draw really badly, but I draw up my frames. I’ve got I’m not going to move my Mac and show you because the the the internet will disconnect. But um I draw my frames up just stick men and just figure it all out just because that’s actually still the quickest way of me kind of getting it out of my head. I’m like, "Okay, great. We got a guy here and that’s prompting."
Host Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Yeah. Exactly. And then I start to go, "Okay, could that work? Could that work?" And then now so for example if you are a storyboard artist that is a bit tricky like I mean the AI can can take your script and turn it into what looks like p perfect a beautiful pencil h you know black and white storyboard frames very very quickly. And you know we’re we were paying like 25 to 50 quid per frame and we were having to wait a lot of time you know so you brief a storyboard artist stuff jobs like that very very hard to kind of keep there are some directors that insist on using them but it’s that’s a very hard game to be in being an illustrator is a hard game to be in at the moment. Um, but obviously like there is a lot to be said for there’s of course there’s loads of magic in handcrafted things and I have and I love I love things all the time that I think there’s no AI in that and I’m glad, you know, but what I’m doing is something different. I’m creating, you know, ideally commercials that would cost often in excess of a million quid or dollars or whatever, you know, for a 60-second commercial. And so I’m allowing brands to create amazing work that is not cheap, but it’s it’s more affordable and it means that you can create more more spots. Um, you know, and you can just do do bigger and better things. If your budget, which is typical, um, is, you know, 200k for a TV commercial, usually that would mean because there’s a lot of people on that set, that would mean you’ve got a one day shoot. you’ve got a very simple concept. Um, there’s not that much you can do with a with a budget like that, which people always find crazy. But when you break it down with all the different wages involved of everybody on on a set and all the editors and producers and everything, there’s so many people involved. But I’m able to go, "No, screw that. We can create whatever the hell we want. Like, we can fly all over the world as long as we do it with AI." So, so that’s good. But don’t get me wrong, there’s a quality issue in AI. Like 90 99% of the stuff that we see on our feeds, I think is AI slop too.
Host Slop slop. Yeah.
Nick I just try not to put it out, which is, you know, I put out one film every two months roughly.
Host Um, as we wrap up, what is or your antidote and advice to sort of prevent AI from killing human creativity?
20:29 The Antidote to AI
Nick Um well don’t rely on it. Um don’t use it.
Host Yeah. But I mean you still use it. So So how can we not lose our sense of art, you know, and sense of uh individuality and creativity?
Nick Yeah. I mean, it’s a tough one because if you’re growing up around it, I think it’s important to like, you know, go and absorb things in the real world and find, you know, just absorb as much as you can. You know, become like a sponge.
Host Yeah.
Nick Go go go to art galleries and read and take in as you know, just go and look at as many things as you poss.
Host And then stay in a in a quiet room and get bored. Let your your mind process everything because when you’re distracted, you cannot process what you’ll experience. Right.
Nick Exactly. I mean, my opinion on creativity is not I don’t actually necessarily think I’m doing it. So, like I can I’ve I’ve come up with ideas before that I’ve taken like one second to come up with and then they go on to win awards all around the world and all this sort of stuff. And then so I’m not I haven’t actually done anything. It’s just the idea just comes. But that then we get into like where do the ideas come from? And then we kind of get a bit spiritual about it. And for me, I actually think I’m just very lucky to be tapped into that and I’m able to, you know, I I I don’t I don’t want to say so, you know, listen to a lot of great musicians and stuff and they they pick up a guitar and they just play a song straight away and it’s it becomes an amazing and and a lot of the times they’ll say, "Yeah, the song was just came out of the guitar."
Host Yeah.
Nick And I kind of think it’s the same even if I’m coming up with an idea for a toilet paper brand.
Host this new this latest documentary about Jay-Z, Rick Rubin talks to Jay-Z. Jay-Z says that like his main hits pretty much were a result of like one hour work like that. So, this is crazy, you know, but what goes into it is years of absorbing and absorbing and thinking about it on the kind of back back mind in your back mind.
Nick Yeah, exact. I mean, yeah. I mean, it’s the classic thing. It takes 20 years and 5 minutes.
Host Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Host All right, man. Uh, a few words. Who are you interested in working with? Who you want to hire or whatever whatever opportunities you’re open to right now?
23:02 What’s Next?
Nick Yeah, sure. Um, well, I’m just I’m getting a lot of scripts from all over the world, um, at the moment and and what I’m trying to do is find brands that just want to do make stuff that’s funny and beautiful and imaginative and that just are willing to kind of take a little bit of a risk and kind of go, actually, maybe we don’t need to shoot this in live action. Maybe we could create it in AI. And what I’ll tend to do, I I get scripts from advertising agencies and from brands and sometimes they and and and a lot of the time they don’t
Host they pitch they pitch scripts to you so you you could make the uh visual the
Nick Mhm. So the ad agency will have the script that the that the creatives have written um and they’ll bring it to me. But what because I’m working in AI and because I have experience with writing scripts, what most of the time I’ll I’ll try and rewrite it a little bit because I’ll say, "Look, actually, what if we shot this on the moon cuz it might be funnier and we can or whatever." And and I just So that that’s the thing. So I’m always just looking for people that want to want to make great fun visual stuff um wherever they are. And I don’t care what kind of brand it is or anything as long as it’s not something like really unethical.
Host Yeah. And and as long as they do have the budget and and you
Nick Yeah. Yeah. You’ve got to have you’ve got you’ve got to be willing to invest like
Host Yeah. AI can be cheap, but it’s not cheap when you are using this is one of the main takeaways that even though it looks like it could be done by anyone, it’s not not cheap at all.
Nick Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I think, you know, go and go and try and then I’ll be I’ll be here when you get back.
Host Good one. Good one. All right, Nick. Thanks so much.
Nick Thank you. Thanks, Serhiy.

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