Tips on video ads. It’s amazing to me how often people leave this stuff off their ads and it can completely destroy an ad. And you don’t want that. So you need to check these out.

So here’s a handful of tips for your ads that a lot of people miss or don’t think about and it completely ruins their ad performance. Like, totally wasted time and space, keep scrolling.

Number one. Put your brand in the video. It’s amazing how often people forget to actually put the brand in the video. They spend so much time making the, you know, truck look good sliding through the mud that the commercial ends and you’re like, ‘wait… what kind of truck was that? Is that a Ram? Is that a Ford? Was that a Toyota? I don’t know.”

Put your brand in the ad.

Number two. Show your product at the very end of the ad. Make it the last thing that the potential buyer sees, is your product sitting there in all its Glory. If you want people to give you a shot make sure that the next time they think about a problem that they’re having, that your product comes to mind because it’s the last thing they saw from the ad.

Number three. Still food, food that’s just sitting there on a plate, it’s just no good. It just, for some reason, it just doesn’t look appetizing. It might be the best food ever but if it’s just sitting on a plate and you’re just showing it – doesn’t work. For some reason food in motion always looks better. If it’s a hamburger it needs to be like grilled or the patties being flipped or the plate is being brought onto a table – some sort of movement. If it’s chocolate it should be pouring, being cut, so it being sliced or being passed around or being delivered, being eaten…

Just put it in motion. For some reason food in motion is extremely more appetizing to look at. Just is. So do it.

Number four. Don’t be afraid to use hero shots with your product. A close-up here and there, kind of dial it in, give it an up angle, put it in good lighting; it just helps to make your product look heroic. Even if it’s, you know, a bottle of bleach or whatever, just make it look like it’s

coming to save the day. It looks good in photos. Just think about how many times you’ve seen a beer commercial and that can is dripping sweat and it’s just at the right angle with the light right behind it, and it just looks glorious…

Hero shots work.

Number five. Open with a bang. Something explosive. Add some fire. Add some bling. Add some shine – You only have two and a half seconds these days before somebody just keeps scrolling and your ad disappears in the scroll. Two and a half seconds. So that first second you got to do something big. Kind of grab their attention so that they stay there and they don’t just you know, keep on going.

Number six. Sound effects. Everybody loves sound effects. They’re great. If you incorporate good sound effects into your ad it will make everything feel that much more vibrant and alive and interesting. Don’t skip out on the sound effects. It’s easy to make something look pretty but that extra bit of work that you do to put the right sound effects to go with your product and go a long long way. And it’s easy, doesn’t really even cost anything extra. Just a little work.

Number seven. Voice-overs are not as good as actually showing the person on camera talking. They are not as engaging. People want to see the people talking. Voiceovers are cool and all, they work in movies, but in an ad, seeing a person talk just works way better. Leave the voiceovers for Morgan Freeman and you have somebody talk in your ad. You’re gonna be happy you did.

Number eight. Use Cuts.

Cuts in the ads help grab attention. You don’t want to make it Overkill. You don’t want it to be annoying. A cut here and there can go a really long way to keep attention. It keeps it moving. Show me something new so that I stay there and I don’t just keep scrolling because that’s the whole point of this thing anyway right? Grab their attention and hold it there so they see your ad.

Number nine. Make it something new. Show the audience something that they’ve never seen before. So if you have an interesting product, try to use that product in a way that has never been used before. Make it something interesting so that they stop and they think, ‘what in the world is this person doing with this product?’

If you’re in the service industry use your service for something ridiculous, you know, that you would never normally do. You go do it for the purpose of the ad to highlight how effective your service is. Make it new. Make it interesting. Otherwise people are just going to keep scrolling until they stumble upon another Old Spice ad.

Let’s face it those are always fun.

And that’s it. I’m out.