01
Ad+Verb Labs
The agency layer
Pre-flight emotional scoring for creative work. The Verb is action — what a brief makes a viewer do. Rails on the bowling ball.
Trent McNelly · Studio
§ 00 — Thesis
I build the measurement
layer for emotion.
Feelings to functions. AI is the new art-of-the-possible — but quality is still the only thing that holds. The work is to make feelings legible enough to design with, without flattening them.
trent mcnelly · san jose · trentonmcnelly@gmail.com
Engine
AI = AO
Artificial intelligence is the new art-of-the-possible. Build the instruments before the rules calcify.
Feelings → Functions
An emotion has to compile. If it can't be measured, it can't be designed for. Waveform physics, not vibes.
Quality > Quantity
One scored ad a day beats a hundred posted ones. Restraint is the moat nobody can copy.
§ 01 — Tools
One engine. Four doors.
The same underlying instrument — emotional waveform consensus — powers four products, each pointed at a different audience.
02
VibeScore
The measurement engine
Four-model AI consensus scoring any media on emotional waveform physics. The first real unit of account for emotion.
03
Watts & Oscillation Works
The heat brand
A navigable studio for art that runs on signal — galleries, MoodMixer, generative pipelines, shadow-CEO tycoon. Where the engine gets unreasonable.
early
04
Signal Chain
The distribution layer
Content hub for the four brands. First-party data, scored pre and post-flight, year-locked cache. The proof feeds itself.
building
§ 02 — Proof
The system works in public.
Three standing demonstrations. Each one is the product showing its own work — transparency, not promise.
Tasting Notes
One ad. One score. Every day.
A standing public demo of the engine — content marketing that is the product.
Divergence Reports
Cultural case studies, scored.
Field Notes companion PDFs travel alone — a 237 KB receipt of how the engine reads a moment.
Path-Card Engine
Five named directions from a brief.
Backed by a 156K-corpus match. Choose-your-adventure for creative direction with the math in the room.
§ 03 — Background
From music to measurement.
The through-line is one question, asked for two decades: can you put a number on the part that matters?
I.
Music
Started by writing songs. Learned early that a chord change is a quantifiable event with a non-quantifiable consequence.
II.
Emotion
Studied advertising at the Academy of Art (BFA, 2012–2016). The thesis was VR/AR advertising — emotional surface area as a design problem.
III.
AI
Eight years across agency and studio work. Saw the same blind spot at every brand: nobody could measure whether a creative artifact landed the way it was intended to.
IV.
Measurement
Built the engine that closes the gap. Feelings to functions — not metaphor, infrastructure.
§ 04 — Ecosystem
How the four connect.
engine
VibeScore
agency
Ad+Verb Labs
art
W&OW
distribution
Signal Chain
VibeScore is the substrate. Ad+Verb is the agency surface above it. W&OW is the unreasonable expression of it. Signal Chain is how all three speak to the world without bleeding voices.
§ 05 — Receipts
The work behind the work.
2022 → Now
Ad+Verb Labs — Founder
Self-funded. Shipped VibeScore Tungsten, a four-model consensus engine on a waveform-physics framework. 12 product surfaces, solo.
2018 → 2020
AstroReality — ACD / PM, Cupertino
Scaled monthly revenue from $10K to $1M in twelve months. Three viral campaigns: 40M+ combined impressions. NASA + SpaceX education partnerships.
2022
Subtropic / ENCORE — AR / Product Designer, LA
Shipped AR work for 35+ brand clients including Louis Vuitton, Snap, Oculus, and NextVR.
2017 → 2018
Ayzenberg — Strategist / Designer, Pasadena
Launch strategy for AAA Oculus titles. Monthly VR/AR/MR competitive briefs to Facebook (Meta) and partner studios.
Brands shipped for
- Louis Vuitton
- Snap
- Oculus / Meta
- NextVR
- NASA
- SpaceX
- NBA
- NFL
- Wimbledon
- Live Nation
- World of Dance
- AstroReality
§ 06 — Selected
Selected artifacts.
A rotating set of case studies. Click-throughs to follow as releases unlock.
Case · 01
Case study slot
Coming online
Case · 02
Case study slot
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Case · 03
Case study slot
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Case · 04
Case study slot
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Case · 05
Case study slot
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Case · 06
Case study slot
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§ 07 — Contact