>Hm but even though he wasn't bending the law, he was still
>kind of going against the grain with no real reason to do it
>(IMO, at least). He still would've reached this goal had the
>commercial been tweaked and released, and he would've had full
>approval.

After the first firm meeting, when he gets challenged by Chuck and ends up telling Kim that he back-door solicited the responses, she says to him, "You're great at this job, but you don't have to cheat to do so" (or something to that effect). And he wants to prove to Chuck that he's not circumventing the law. So he comes up with a way to do his job well without cheating. He knows the way these potential clients think, so he crafts an ad that directly appeals to them. Then he shows the commercial to Kim, and she loves it, and he doesn't want to risk losing that "approval" by having the commercial gutted or not run at all.


>OK that last point I guess I can buy. I don't think they
>really fleshed that out very well, though, I suppose.

I think they fleshed it out well enough by look on Jimmy's face when Kim tells him that she loves the commercial and asks, "So Davis and Main approved this?" You can tell he doesn't want to say, "Well, they haven't yet, but they hopefully will!" He wants to prove that he did what she asked him to do and everyone is happy with him.