“It would be easy to spend time thinking about where Dr. Rick should go next in his journey,” McBride told ADWEEK. “But we have to go where the honest insight is, like how your mom or dad would respond to ordering at a restaurant like Sweetgreen. Travel is like that.”

While there are plenty of cliches about boomers’ behavior that could spawn Dr. Rick commercials, creatives try to avoid the low-hanging fruit.

“The idea has to be undeniably true,” McBride said, “but it has to surprise you because you’ve never heard it before.”