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How to Create Great Video Ads
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How to Create Great Video Ads

Learning Objectives

If you haven't already, please review the Ad Creatives module. It will go more in depth into how to create great ads.

Instead of shouting at people to buy your product, consider framing your ad as a narrative. Stories are a lot more memorable than listing or describing product features because they tap into emotion.

For a better narrative, structure your ad like a three-act play—the three-part structure takes viewers on a journey to understanding your product.

There are many approaches to how to actually do this, but these are our two favorite frameworks:

Pain-dream-fix Problem-agitate-solve
Identify your customer’s pain—their problem and its consequences.
Describe the dream, what reality might look like without this problem.
Explain the fix. Rather than listing your product’s features, describe how the product removes their pain and fulfills the dream.
Identify your user’s problem.
Agitate users by diving into what happens if their problem is left unsolved. Emphasize its side effects and make users feel more urgent about fixing it.
Explain how your product solves the problem.

Besides using a three-part structure, your videos also need to provide value right away to engage viewers, especially skippable ads. Otherwise, your ad will be skipped—or worse, it’ll annoy potential customers. They might even avoid buying from your company because your ads have left a terrible impression.

One final tip for creating good ads: Create videos for YouTube.

We’ve seen many companies repurpose their Facebook video ads on YouTube—and see poor results. Avoid this. People browse social media and YouTube with different expectations, so instead of recycling other platforms’ ads, make ones specifically for YouTube.

Let’s take a look at a few different video ads to see what works and what doesn’t.

Example: Grammarly

First, here’s an ad from Grammarly that follows the pain-dream-fix format.

The video tells the story of Tyler, an employee struggling to communicate with his boss (the pain). But building a better work relationship (the dream) is possible using Grammarly (the fix), which is shown throughout the ad. By the end of the video, Tyler has realized his dream and viewers understand what Grammarly can do for them.

What makes this ad work?

  • It tells a relatable story—anyone who’s struggled to connect with their boss understands the problem. This lets Grammarly show the value of its software in a way that resonates emotionally (versus simply listing product features).
  • A narrator guides the story along at a quick pace.
    • Unlike video ads on other channels, YouTube ads have sound on by default. For narratives that aren’t so intuitive, we’ve seen that ads with voiceover perform better than those without.

Example: Pillow Cube

Now check out this ad from Pillow Cube—it uses the problem-agitate-solve framework.

After identifying traditional pillows as the problem, Pillow Cube expands on how they fail people who sleep on their side. The video agitates viewers by pointing out that traditional pillows cause people to bend their necks and twist their spines out of alignment. Then Pillow Cube introduces its pillows, explaining how their cube shape offers better support.

A few takeaways from this video:

  • It tackles the problem (traditional pillows) in the first few seconds.
    • No matter what type of video ad you use, you should get to the problem immediately, within the first 3-4 seconds. This grabs the viewer’s attention.
  • Pillow Cube doesn’t dive into great detail about the materials its pillows are made of or any other product features. It focuses on their real-life use cases and how their pillows fit into the viewer’s life.
  • It ends with a CTA—we see Pillow Cube’s logo and signs asking viewers to "Donate" and "Support Our Cause." (This video was originally used for Pillow Cube's Kickstarter campaign.)  
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