DevSquad
Fire Your Frankenstack
The company’s tech stack is literally Frankenstein’s monster.
Watch the full campaign · 1:17
The Strategy
DevSquad builds custom software for growing companies: the in-house tools that replace a pile of spreadsheets, clunky apps and workarounds, written in real code the client owns. This is our second campaign with DevSquad's founder, after Do You Flow for DevStats, his other company.
In the fall of 2025, DevSquad stopped chasing startups. Its new buyers run mid-size companies, often in fields like construction or manufacturing, with no developers of their own. Most of them don't know custom software is even an option. They think it's slow, expensive and only for huge companies. So they make do with a stack of tools that don't talk to each other.
DevSquad already had a name for that mess: a Frankenstack. We pitched three ways in, and DevSquad picked the one built on that word: software that fits your workflow, not the other way around.
Then we wrote four ideas, and DevSquad picked the most literal one. The tech stack is Frankenstein's monster, and he works in the office. In our first draft, two coworkers vented about their tools in the breakroom while their monster coworker took every word personally. DevSquad's founder pushed it further. He moved it to a conference room and added a CEO who has to make the call, a nod to the boardroom on The Apprentice. That made the monster defensive, so he could argue back the way people do when they're attached to their old tools. It also turned the campaign's name from Ditch Your Frankenstack into Fire Your Frankenstack.
The main spot opens on a meeting. Jess walks Ted, the CEO, through her workflow: export from Salesforce, paste into Excel, chase the team in Slack, then type it all into the old system again. Frank, who built that system, sits right there, trying to pour a glass of water.
The 15-second teaser and follow-up stay in the same meeting, and the two 6-second spots never leave the table. Every spot lands on the same question: dealing with a Frankenstack?
The Process
We rented an office north of Denver and dressed one conference room for all five spots. We shot them in one day, in January 2026.
Frank is our own take on Frankenstein's monster. Universal Pictures owns the classic look: the green skin, the neck bolts, the square head. We stayed clear of all three. Our Frank has gray skin, a stitched-up scalp and a blazer sewn together from pieces of several different blazers, built the same way as his company's tech stack. His makeup took five hours to put on.
Frank's arm does come off, and it's all practical. It's a fake arm in its own sleeve, held to the rest of the blazer with Velcro.
Ted eats through every meeting: coffee from a gold mug, a can of nuts, caviar on crackers. That was our director Brian's idea. It gives Ted something to do and keeps the frame alive. Two people sitting and talking can feel flat. A CEO snacking through the chaos doesn't.
We delivered a 30-second main spot, two 15s and two 6-second spots, in widescreen, square and vertical. They send viewers to FireYourFrankenstack.com. DevSquad ran its own media. The campaign won a Platinum Hermes Creative Award.
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