Often, the very best video ads are the messiest. They aren’t polished. They are raw and unedited. Social media can feel so fake so much of the time. Sometimes what works best is the opposite: absolute real truth. It feels both jarring and refreshing at the same time.
Here are 5 times I’ve seen raw unedited video content win the day in an ad campaign. Not sure what to create for your next ad? Try one of these ideas. It could work.
1. Keep the background noise. In this example, the client used content from an influencer talking about the product. The influencer’s toddler was literally yelling in the background, but the influencer just kept going, talking on and on about why she loved the product. That reel made us money for months and months. The fact that she had her toddler in the background gave her (and our product) so much credibility. People couldn’t imagine that we would have paid for such raw content. They believe that she really liked our product enough to talk about it freely and that she wasn’t just reading a script.
2. Record in the carpool line. I’ve had two different clients make reels in the carpool line that did super well. They both have moms as a major component of their target audience, so when people saw my clients being regular moms, it made them look more relatable.
3. Invite your kids into your videos. One of my clients uses this approach a lot, and it works well every time she does it. Of course it doesn’t hurt that her kids are adorable, but watching kids be cute and go completely off-script can be entertaining too. She sticks to her script and message while her kids sort of go along with her, but in their own precious kid sort of way. We end up with videos that entertain and inform at exactly the same time.
4. Put your pets in your videos. This has worked for a couple of clients too. When they’ve gone to make their traditional “talking head video” they’ve held their pets up next to them and engaged with them in the frame. Cute animals always get all the clicks. I’m not sure that will ever change.
5. Walk and chew gum at the same time. Ok, not really. But lately a lot of clients have been pulling this trend over from TikTok. They have their usual message that they’re sharing on video and then they’re doing *something else* while they are sharing that message. The something else varies: cooking, putting on make up, walking, exercising, curling their hair. The something else is almost always something that’s pretty mundane, but it’s just enough to stop the scroll and get people to listen a little bit.
These kinds of things work well with your organic social content too. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.