How to Get Ahead in Advertising is a 1989 British black comedy fantasy film written and directed by Bruce Robinson, and starring Richard E. Grant and Rachel Ward.

The film is a farce about a mentally unstable advertising executive, Denis Dimbleby Bagley (played by Grant), who suffers a nervous breakdown while making an advert for pimple cream.

The boil takes a cynical and unscrupulous view of the advertising profession in contrast to Bagley's new-found ethical concerns.

The "boil" eventually withers but doesn't die, yet Bagley resumes his advertising career rejuvenated and ruthless, although without his wife, who decides to leave his new cruel persona.

[1] In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel in 2019, Richard E. Grant said that Jim Carrey called him a genius for his work in the film.