Creative: finding the angle, then making it

Creative is the main lever on this platform, and most of the advice about it is about production: aspect ratios, hooks in the first second, captions, cutting fast. All true, all secondary. The expensive part is the angle, which is the argument the advert is making.

Angle before execution

An angle is the reason this product matters, stated from one particular direction. The same product has several, and they are not equally good for the same audience.

• The problem. Open with the thing that is going wrong, in the customer's words. Works when the pain is recognised and chronic.
• The outcome. Show the state they want, and let the product be how you got there. Works when the result is visual.
• The objection. Name the reason people do not buy and answer it. Works in crowded categories where everyone has been burned.
• The comparison. Against the obvious alternative, including doing nothing. Works when the alternative is what they are currently doing.
• The mechanism. Why this works when other things did not. Works when the category has a credibility problem.

A set of adverts that are five executions of one angle will all die together, because the thing that stopped working was the argument. Five different angles give you somewhere to go when one fades.

Two angles, written out

Same service, two arguments, so the difference between an angle and a variation is obvious.

The problem angle. Opening frame: a stockroom at closing time, shelves half counted. First line on screen: Sunday night, counting stock, guessing the order. Then: six hours a week, every week, and you still over-order. Then the turn: it takes an hour when the routine is written down. Then the ask: see how the routine works.

The comparison angle. Opening frame: two columns, software pricing on one side and a printed sheet on the other. First line: you do not need a system with a monthly fee. Then: most places need a routine, not software. Then the turn: the same result, set up once, nothing to subscribe to. Then the same ask.

Both sell the same thing. If the first fades, the second is not a new edit of it, it is a different argument that may land with people the first never reached. That is what having angles buys you.

Then the execution

Once the angle is decided, production rules apply, and they are not complicated.

1. 01Earn the first second. Movement, a face, a problem visible immediately, or text that states the point. Not a logo and not a slow build.
2. 02Make it survive silence. Most of it will be watched with no sound. If the message needs audio, burn it into the frame.
3. 03Fill the screen. Vertical for placements that are vertical. A letterboxed landscape video in a full-screen placement reads as an advert before anyone has read it.
4. 04Say the one thing. An advert that makes three points makes none.
5. 05Let it look like the feed. Polish signals advertising; something that looks like a person made it tends to be watched for longer. This has limits if your product sells on being premium, so judge it against the brand rather than following the rule blindly.

The first second, specifically

Hooks are discussed as a mystery and they are mostly a short list. Any of these can open any angle, which is also how you get several adverts out of one argument without repeating yourself.

• The situation, shown. The stockroom, the spreadsheet, the mess, with no words for a beat.
• The sentence they have said themselves. If your Sunday night is a stock count and a guess.
• The number. Six hours a week, every week.
• The contradiction. You do not need software for this.
• The result first, then how. An hour a week. Here is what changed.

What does not work as an opening, reliably: your logo, a slow pan, a greeting, and the words in this video. Each of them spends the only second you had on something that is not the point.

Make more than feels reasonable

Creative is consumed here. An advert that works will stop working, usually within weeks at any real spend, and the only defence is having the next one ready. Plan to produce continuously rather than to launch once.

A workable rhythm for one person: three or four new pieces a month, drawn from two or three angles, with the best performer kept running until it visibly declines. That sounds like a lot until you notice that most of the work is the angle, and that three executions of a decided angle is an afternoon with a phone.

This is the main practical reason small advertisers struggle on the channel. Not targeting and not budget: they build four adverts, one works for a month, and then there is nothing behind it.