Scriptwriting Mastermind: How We Use Storytelling to Outperform 80% of Meta Ads

0:00Loukas:Welcome back to another episode of DTC Diaries. If you're listening to this on Spotify, I'd really recommend going to YouTube today because we are doing a very in-depth training on storytelling within ads. This is probably one of the hardest things that strategists can do. Script writing is probably one of the highest barrier to entry parts of that role. and today we're running you through our internal training that we did with our team that made them incredible script writers and storytellers. We're going to be focusing on top of funnel ads, so problem aware and unaware creatives, which we're seeing probably about 80 % of our best performers across all accounts right now within those two funnel positions.

0:43Loukas:So this is probably one of the most important trainings you could watch or to share with your team. So without further ado let's get into it if you know anyone that will find this useful please share it with them subscribe to us on youtube because you know the more support that we get from you guys the more we will be sharing internally in terms of how we are upskilling our teams which a lot of time and effort goes into so if you can comment if you can like and subscribe it means so much to us we also have a few easter egg golden nuggets throughout this where we will ask you to comment certain things and in return we will send you a few prompts that will help you with your storytelling as part of this process.

1:24Loukas:So let's get into it.

1:29Loukas:Today we are going to be going deep on how to become a master storyteller for your paid meta and TikTok ads. Now this is probably one of the most requested episodes we've had. It's probably one of the hardest things to train as part of script writing because we've gone through very much a change over the last 12 months where previously direct response ads worked but now it's all about longer more education pain point agitation focused setups now that comes with being an experienced and skilled storyteller now these are load of the things that areas that i've seen make the best possible storyteller over the last 12 months.

2:11Loukas:This is a training we ran with our team and we saw a massive, massive increase in the ability to create performance first ads whilst utilising storytelling. Now, I would really, really recommend if you're listening to this on Spotify, head over to YouTube now and give it a watch because we've got a deck that we're running through. It's very visual. And this is the first of our more mastermind focused series where we're going to be sharing and going much deeper into topics and helping upskill those that watch, whether you're brands, whether you're creative strategists, whatever it might be, this should be massively, massively beneficial.

2:49Loukas:So without further ado, let's get started. So I wanted to touch on where I just started there around the evolution of the funnel and what we are seeing working right now. Previously, I remember hammering to my team this idea that we had to be introducing the product solution within the first five seconds and if we don't do that then we're going to get drop off um we need to see what the solution is and what the product is or otherwise it won't convert now it was very bottom of funnel middle of funnel focused uh last year and that is very much changed going into this year we have seen much more heavy impact and emphasis on storytelling as a whole going further up the funnel to unlock new customers so unaware and problem aware stages and a much longer setup of product intro now as i said previously it was like five seconds we need to introduce the product solution but now we're actually seeing 15 20 sometimes even up to 40 plus seconds of setup before we even introduce the product as the solution and i think you know this is because One, meta-Andromeda means that when we are running creative, we need to have more diversity across stages of the performance funnel underpinned by different psychological messaging frameworks.

4:09Loukas:And to do that, you know, we need to be doing these actual setup as effectively as possible, which is one of the hardest things. One of the biggest things I see when I audit most ad accounts right now is that too much of the content is skewed towards the lower end of the funnel. Whereas now what we're seeing, as I said, is much more unaware and problem aware focus of ads. So I guess just to start, let's actually look at messaging at each stage of the funnel and what those stages are. because the best creative strategist before going into each round of creative, they will split across the funnel, whether that's unaware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware, or most aware.

4:53Loukas:Now that has nothing to do with the way that we're targeting, but by labeling a creative at a stage of a funnel, it means that the creative becomes the targeting. So if we're creating more of a high level founder story, that is very much like problem and unaware first and as a result we are going to drive cpms down and also we're going to be targeting net new customers rather than repeating and targeting the same customers that we had done previously if we were more solution product aware so just to kind of talk through each of these stages obviously unaware largest audience potential because you know we're going much more top of funnel the type of creatives that you're going to see in this stage of the funnel is you know secret so i uncovered the secret for x and so you know there was that journey of self-discovery it could be more story first so we see a lot of founder stories sitting in the unaware stage of the funnel it could be an industry exposed so you know let's say that your product is solving a problem and all of the other failed solutions are doing something that you want.

6:04Loukas:So let's say your product is seven times cheaper than most others on the market. And you realize that the other brands are charging seven times more just for a label or prettier packaging when really the quality of the actual product is not as good. That is a creative where we can be exposing the industry and we can be kind of bringing that to the attention of the audience that didn't know that they even had a problem that existed. So unaware is essentially targeting anyone that the problem is there, but they don't know it actually exists. So we may need to educate around that. And that's the final kind of type of creative that we usually find within this stage of the funnel.

6:42Loukas:It's very education heavy. So, you know, people might not know, let's say it's a gut health issue. People might not actually realise that, you know, the things that are actually causing gut health issues. So therefore we've got to actually educate them so they understand what the problem is and why they have it. and that's when we then bridge into the solution which is why there has to be much longer set up as part of that process. The second is problem aware. Now this is again very problem solution first it's where you're going to see most of the typical UGC transformation testimonial style creatives again large audience size they're very aware of the problem but not yet aware of the potential solutions to that problem solution aware medium audience size again we're getting more to like middle of the funnel at this point um this is you know where you'll see your classic three reasons why creatives us versus them they're the the the audience are aware of our solution but they're also aware of our competitors solution so it's our job at this stage to not be really setting up the problem they already know about the problem they don't need to be educated around that what we need to really drive at this stage is really focusing on what are our usps in comparison to our competitors what are the benefits that that you know our product is a solution for that others can't talk about why is our product better than the others this is where we're going to be taking them lower in the funnel because we are battling our solution versus others product aware is a very warm audience size and you're going to find that you know as a result we're targeting much smaller audience sizes um this where we are here is they just need to nudge over the line to make that purchase so we see a lot of objection handling this this is where you might get comment reply videos where someone is sitting uh answering a common objection that that brand might have so little tip on this one like if you're running csvs uh sorry if you have reviews that you can put into a csv and you upload that to chat gpt and finding out what the common objections are You also find that on social comments.

8:48Loukas:You'll find that through customer support. All of these places are good areas to find potential objections. Reddit is another one. And all we're doing is we're handling those objections to almost educate around actually why that isn't true. So also where we really focus on trust building. So what are the accolades that we can bring in that is going to build that final piece of trust to make, you know, allow that consumer to take action and buy the product? that could be pr that could be you know the amount the trust pilot reviews that we have or the rating that we have uh that might be the the volume of of products that are sold you know we have over a million customers as an example and the most aware is the smallest audience size you know this is all about offer promise guarantee you know at this stage we creative is only most aware if we are offering something outside of bau essentially so you know that might be a bundle that might be a buy one get one free whatever it might be this is the final nudge to get them over to purchase so now we've just done a quick kind of run through of the different stages of the funnel the two that as i say we're going to be focusing on today and how to script properly through that is unaware and problem aware so as i said unaware you know they don't know that they have a problem nor are they actively seeking that solution and our objective there is to very much capture attention, really create that curiosity, tap into those hidden truths.

10:20Loukas:And, you know, it's that idea of making them think, yeah, actually, yeah, this does affect me. I didn't realise it did, but it does. And that's why curiosity is so king in this and why, you know, we really need to focus on just getting them into the funnel so they are curious enough to continue exploring the potential solution. And as I say, strong hook is a big part of that. Even though we're not introducing the product for 20 plus seconds, we need to be getting them locked in from the first five seconds. So that is still very much true. Think of it like a crossbow. If we're not introducing the solution for 15, 20 seconds, we still need to be slowly pulling that crossbow back enough that they're going to stay retained.

11:03Loukas:So then when we let go, it has even more impact when that solution is introduced. As I say, industry exposed, very much those journeys of self-discovery, whatever it might be, this is where we do that. But education is very much at the forefront of unaware ads. And then problem aware, as I say, the audience knows something's wrong, but they haven't necessarily found the fix for it yet. So we're agitating the pain, really agitating the pain, agitating those failed solutions that they may have tried because they don't know your product exists as a solution, but they might have loads of other potential solutions that have failed.

11:41Loukas:And as a result, they may not be looking for a solution anymore because they just don't think it exists. So this is very much that problem solution set up. If you really struggle with this, then you need this. And again, creating that curiosity around it, It's showing the transformational journey that someone's been on. This is where we're really bringing that personal story in and we can really focus on the reasons why that is as well. We want to be introducing the product naturally, as I say. Previously, it would be, as I just said, if you struggle with this problem, then you need this solution.

12:18Loukas:whereas now we want to build the curiosity initially really agitate the problem bring in that social proof of you know what is the problem that we're agitating for before we bring in the solution now we want to be avoiding buzzwords it needs to feel more authentic relatable at this stage of the funnel because that again that relatability is what creates hold rate what retains the viewer through until when they are going to purchase when we hit that them with that CTA. So let's just start on common pitfalls. What are the things that I've seen over the last 12 months that we have 10 plus strategists across our businesses and I've seen a lot of the potential pitfalls that stop us from really driving storytelling through the creative that we produce.

13:07Loukas:And as I say, one of them is just not agitating the problem enough before introducing the solution so they just kind of touch briefly on the problem it's very surface level and then we go straight into the solution well that hasn't really got you know we haven't got that buy-in but from the consumer yet if they are top of funnel um as i say content final just is is just too heavily weighted to the bottom of funnel now that is exactly why when you are creating a round of content for your your back brand whatever it be batch of content that's why in that strategy phase we need to align on okay how many creatives are we putting in problem aware unaware solution product most aware we need to set that as part of the strategy before we go into concepting and that's something that i don't see done enough um to be honest um and something that we really really focus on as part of our process i think as i said this kind of feeds into what i was saying previously like there's too much um too much surface level storytelling when we're talking and agitating the problem and we're not going deeper into emotions or human desires and that is incredibly important if we're really going to get the buy-in right like if i'm just there saying oh i really suffer with spots that's not going to have the same impact as saying i think i've stopped going out my friends because i've lost confidence i can't you know i'm i'm reapplying my makeup three times and i'm looking into the mirror and i'm you know it's put it's i'm shedding a tear as a result you know well by bringing in the deeper problem and there always is and it always links to a human desire um then by doing so we are really able to uh uncover the solution and the solution will have much more weight when we get to that point sales jargon again is something that i just see done too often um and it makes the script feel less authentic and relatable and i think this we've got some good techniques that i'm going to share as part of this process and how we can avoid that because um obviously i'm not saying we can't speak on behalf of the brand and in certain types of creative but if it's coming from the consumer it's really important we're using language that the consumer will use or otherwise it becomes inauthentic.

15:26Loukas:Another one is fluff. If it doesn't drive the call message forward, then we should remove it essentially. I see this happening too often where sometimes we're trying to do a longer setup, agitating the problem, but we've lost the consumer because there's things in there that aren't really driving the story forward. So that's another area we're going to touch on today. And I think the final one is not adjusting the messaging accordingly to align with market sophistication. So as we know, there's going to be products or problems that link to high sophistication within the market. So the one I just used there, a spot serum, right?

16:09Loukas:People very much are highly sophisticated about the problem of spots. They know there's loads of solutions on the market. That's not something that they wouldn't have heard before versus a product that, you know, like a filtered showerhead. We need to educate more around what that problem, what the problem is, because they don't know that a filtered showerhead, you know, is bad for your skin. Right. They might not know the impact of hard water on the skin and the hair. So we need to educate more around that. So as a result, you can see, you know, the messaging is going to be different for different levels of market sophistication.

16:42Loukas:sophistication. So as I say, 15 to 20 seconds of setup is what we're seeing in most top spenders right now. Again, that can sometimes be longer. If it's a low sophistication solution that we have and people don't know about it, we sometimes are setting up the problem or educating around the problem for 40 plus seconds before we introduce a solution. We also recommend at least a 50-60 % of funnel split towards unaware and problem aware stages. That's what's going to unlock new customer revenue more than going much lower in funnel. And especially if we're doing that correctly. Now, obviously, this depends on your marketing peaks.

17:25Loukas:If this is around Black Friday, that's likely going to come down slightly because we're doing more offers and things like that. So obviously, this isn't a blanket rule for every part of the year. But for the most part, this is the sweet spot we're seeing work 50 to 60 percent just being up a funnel more time spent on the before state allows for much deeper connection and it allows us to stretch our legs and with that with that storytelling and really set up the problem utilizing real human language is very much proven a driver for best performance so i'll give some examples of that and this is usually when we experience drop-off slash low hold rates when there is a lot of fluff within the creative and again that is why we just need to be super obsessed with if it is not serving the story we need to remove it and finally if we're educating someone with an already strong understanding of our solution we're not likely going to resonate right because we need to know who we're trying to speak to here if it's as I say something about spots and blemishes that we we have a solution for, we don't need to be educating around the problem of spots and blemishes.

18:35Loukas:We want to be focusing on those deeper human desires, how that makes them feel, how that impacts their confidence or agitating failed solutions. We don't want to be educating around the problem of spots and blemishes. Whereas if it was gut health issues, as an example, there's, there might be lower market sophistication. So we want to educate more around the problem. So let's break it down then. Starting with cut the fluff, right? So your creative should be very, very lean. If a line, visual or moment doesn't serve the story, build conflict or drive the core message forward, cut it. And it's as simple as that.

19:11Loukas:I went to film school before I ever started my agency. And there was this phrase that was thrown around a lot, which is quite shocking to hear. it sounds a little bit dodgy but it was called um kill kill kill the babies essentially um and what we mean by that is like if it doesn't serve the story if it's not 100 needed then we need to cut it and we did that when we were creating films um where like if we loved a scene even if you know it's like if we love a part in a script it's beautifully written but it doesn't serve the core story even though we love it it needs to go and the same the same applies when we're creating ads for the brands that we're working with.

19:50Loukas:So these are questions that I like to ask to really truly understand if it is fluff and we need to cut it. So does this part escalate the pain, deepen the desire or move us closer to a resolution? Could we remove this line and nothing else change? Is this just filler or does it make the story sharper? Does this feel like how an actual human would talk? Can I shorten this sentence and say it louder and clearer? and would this line hold attention on TikTok or Meta or whatever it might be and again I think this is really really important these are great questions to ask now these if you've got a script and you're unsure put these questions into chat GPT and ask it to challenge the script accordingly which is a great technique that some of our team use when they are quality controlling their own creatives and I think the the fifth one really resonates here because sometimes I see things that are said in 10 words, which could easily be said in five, just by being a bit more bold, cutting some of the language accordingly.

20:58Loukas:And again, we've got some examples where we'll show that in a moment. But I see this done in hooks quite a lot, where hooks are prolonged. And actually we don't hear what the pain point and what the potential benefit solution is by the time we get to like second four or five because we've just said it in too many words. Now it's easy to cut that down, but that's something to really be considerate of during that process. So here's some examples now. And this is from a creative, one of our clients, Collagen Brand. I'm not necessarily going to show you this full creative, but it's a great idea it's a great example of like when we've done this ourselves and the impact this had this this creative actually was a top spender it's an expert talking to a non-believer in a podcast setting and you'll see what it was before and then what it was after when we then reran this concept so before it was if your skin is beginning to show visible signs of aging such as sagging or fine lines it's likely a result of the natural degradation process that occurs within the structural layers of your dermal matrix now that's going to people going to drop off if they hear that it sounds scientific and we you know originally the person that wrote this script thought yeah that's that's right because it's coming from an expert but we need to dumb it down we need to say this in a way that a five-year-old will understand or otherwise people are going to drop off because they get lost it's got to be as simple as possible so when we change the line to if your skin's starting to sag it's not just aging it's collagen loss we've just said the same thing but in a lot less words and again that performed extremely well we're getting to the problem instantly and we look we've almost hinted at the potential solution the second one that leads to increasing discomfort during physical activity including tension behind the knees when climbing stairs and general stiffness in the joints after periods of inactivity again it doesn't sound like a human would say that if you go to the gp the gp is going to describe it to you and dumb it down in a way that you're going to understand they're not going to make they're not going to use all these fancy words and they're not going to um you know add these filler words in either and you can see the second one is is much more simple but also defined so that stiffness in your knees when waking up that discomfort after a long walk is collagen depletion your body literally lacks the structural support it once had again much more direct we're more impactful with the words that we're using and it does much better as part of the sentence it flows better it feels more natural so always think about how we can cut the fluff because it's really really important as part of that and i love i love i love this quote where great storytelling isn't about saying everything it's about saying the right things and that's how we retain a viewer's attention really being selective of the things we choose to put in that script now second one here ditch the jargon this is again an important part of if we want to story tell from the perspective of the consumer When we have jargon, we have more ad fatigue.

24:13Loukas:The viewers scroll the second it sounds like an ad. And that's the whole point of like using 20, 30 seconds to set up the problem because it doesn't feel like an ad because we're not actively selling to them. It's more organic the way that we bridge the solution in. The second one is breaks trust. It feels scripted, rehearsed, or inauthentic. Blocks emotion. I think, again, when we use jargon, And it reduces the impact of when we are trying to drive emotion through a creative. And it means that the viewer isn't connecting to it. It forces complexity. So make simple ideas feel much harder to understand.

24:53Loukas:It kills relatability. So again, real people don't say clinically backed hydration delivery system. You know, it's like, how can we say that in a way that real people are going to understand? and it sounds like everyone else i think this is another one like a lot of brands are going to speak in the exact same language because they're in this echo chamber of copying each other whereas really we want to speak like the consumer um of obviously only if it's a an ad that comes from the perspective of the consumer but i'm a big believer of that dumb it down so it's so a five-year-old could understand it and it also drowns the benefits right like we as we know So selling is about selling the benefits, not selling the actual unique selling points, right?

25:42Loukas:That's really important. And the audience misses what actually matters if we kind of drown it in the jargon, in the jargon of the USPs, in the jargon of bringing in the problems, all of that stuff. We miss the benefits, which again is the afterstate. That's what it's all about. so an example of this right we had this best performer for one of our clients i've just had to cut out um the rest of the ad but there was a product right next to it um but i love this quote and this was a top spender for a long long time my knees used to sound like rice krispies snap crackle pop now silence i'm obsessed with this collagen um and again it's a great example of like how we ditch the jargon and speak in a way that is humanized right because by using metaphors um the the easy way for the user to visualize the problem they instantly get more relatability to it um so again going from my knees used to be in excruciating pain to my knees used to go snap crackle and pop we can visualize that much better um and i think that's why this creative did quite well.

26:55Loukas:I think a great example as well that we saw for one of our clients was optimize your microbiome was the before is a gut health product to it's like a traffic light in the gut. It goes green to let the good through and red to keep the bad out. Again, I love that like a visual metaphor, a way of like describing a problem that everyone will be able to quite easily relate to. and finally increases energy and reduces fatigue bit boring bit dull to feels like an eight hour sleep in a scoop again you can very much visualize the idea of that we all know the feeling of having a great night's sleep and by doing that we are compressing it into the solution which is the scoop of whatever that might be and again you know use metaphors and explain it like you're talking to a five-year-old if they get it your audience will too and a lot of the time that we see drop off or reduced hold rate you want to be at about an eight percent hold rate which is seen as is very strong and a good benchmark if we get if we're below that then we are likely doing something like this that is stopping them to is creating them to lose interest in what we're actually doing.

28:10Loukas:So the next thing we want to go into is deepening storytelling with human desires.

28:19Loukas:So I think one thing that I've been really trying to get in the head of my team is this idea of how we can bring in human desires more to a story. Think of this like a feature length film right you know you go on that story brand framework where there's a protagonist who has a problem that comes across a problem that then has to go on a journey of self-discovery to get over that problem. They find a guide on their way, which in the eyes of the brand is their product. And then they get to the climax, which is the solution and the afterstate, right? Now, this comes through deep human desires and emotional storytelling.

29:01Loukas:There's no film that wouldn't tap into that psyche if it's going to retain the viewer's attention. And I don't know if you've heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but it's this psychological theory proposing that humans are very much motivated by a series of needs, which essentially is like arranged in a hierarchical order. So, you know, it's starting at the top, the desire to become the most that one can be. and so again you know that comes into elements of confidence right like if i am if i don't feel good enough in the way i look then that is a deep problem that i need to solve and a lot of the time we don't go deep enough when we're talking about solutions we think it's just spots or we think it's just you know skin or whatever it might be joint pain but it's actually much deeper than that right like why do people not want to have spots is because they care about the way they look again we get down to esteem it's that respect self-esteem status you know spots if i've got spots and that's damaging my confidence what's deeper than that is because it's that idea of like how i care what people think and it's therefore it's impacting my status and so these are the kind of emotional triggers that we need to be tapping into within our scripts or otherwise we're not going to to really get that buy-in similarly with like love and belonging like you know if i'm talking about menopause or a product that's supporting menopause right what is the deeper problem than just the surface level pain points it's the fact that it could be impacting their relationship with their partner you know so bringing in language like my husband said i wasn't like i used to be you know that's deep people can relate to that in a relationship it must be a horrible thing to hear and it's not just the surface level pain points of brain fog energy you know we're going into relationships which is something that we can all relate to to some degree so again it's like how do we tie these into what we're doing without human desires that's when we're starting to feel very surface level we're talking to the viewer not to to the individual on a deeper level there's no emotion as we know emotional hooks work incredibly well especially for solutions that are really tackling a problem without that desire you know we don't have anything to connect with as the viewer you're selling features not feelings and as we know feelings are what converts that's why we're what i was talking about with benefits right the benefits of a product what are those benefits and what is actually the deeper human desire related to wanting to improve on that benefit it viewers forget it fast right i think again that's why we remember great films because it had it touched us emotionally to some degree if we didn't have that if there weren't human desires there's no memorability and that's why it's really important that we tie these in especially when we're in the problem we're in unaware states in the funnel you miss the why behind the buy people want confidence not collagen as i was saying like a great example of that you know people really want to go deeper into actually what is the why.

32:22Loukas:Think about the why when you're going through that research phase because usually it's not the surface level solution that the brand or the industry think it is. And performance plateaus because facts alone don't drive action and that kind of ties into all of those as well as like it doesn't feel personal. A storytelling is about being more personal being relatable and this is what deepening your human desires within your scripts will do so i wanted to show you an ad here this was like a top performer for a long time for one of our clients el sarah and this is a testimonial video and i want you to see if you can hear the moments where we are linking in human desires i was angry tired i was confused basically unbearable to live with.

33:14So I've been taking El Saraw now for around three months. Got it on Christmas Eve and by the middle of January I was a different woman. Tell me what ways you felt better. Basically saving marriage. Improve my sleep pattern. I haven't got that anxiety. Really helped me with weight loss. Giving me some kind of confidence boost. I feel amazing. You just kind of expected to do everything and not crack. The NHS need to just describe them to every woman out there since I've been taking the golden pills. I'm on an even keel. I pulled my husband to one side and things like you were back to the person that I fell off with.

33:44I thought you were crap. Brand is absolutely perfect. It's fabulous on the outside, like we should be. It's fabulous on the inside. When you feel good about yourself, it just uses in your face, it uses in your skin, in your personality. I would definitely recommend El Saran. I'm happy to be a golden girl now. Please just try it. What's the harm? It works. It works.

34:08Loukas:Cool. um so let's look at the examples within that where we're linking human desires so the first one angry tired basically unbearable to live with that's linking to control and emotional stability right um it's it's creating the fear of oh if i'm unbearable to live with maybe my partner might leave me um the next one after taking it i was a different room woman links to identity right the identity to be a strong independent powerful woman um by bringing that in as part of the after stay that's going to relate to other women out there basically saved my marriage again deeper than the the surface level problem love connection and belonging given me some kind of confidence boost so again confidence and personal empowerment what did that do deeper than just the surface level problem which was menopausal pain points I have my confidence back and my favorite one which again if you can bring in relatable real stories in the human world even better so I pulled my husband to one side and he was like you're back to the person I fell in love with validation love identity again that's something that I think a lot of people are going to be able to relate to and that is why this resonated with so many people i have a really vivid memory of getting ready just to go to town and i put on makeup and i took it off and then i put it back on again by the third one i was prying i could not feel comfortable in my own skin for christmas my mom had got me this little bottle it was a 47 skin original anti-blemish syrup and she's like oh i've been doing some research and she's like and i found this brand and they use an agreement i've never seen any other skincare product and they talk about skin positivity which is what you're obsessed with i started using it and literally had immediate results for me not just to get rid of the blemishes but like my skin health just changed so the ingredients clearly worked so well for me I was like glowing I don't think I would feel comfortable I mean like right now I don't wear makeup most days of the week now it will always be the first thing I recommend because it's just so reliable uh yeah so again another great example of one and I think the reason why I love this one and this is again something we're going to get onto in a moment is the idea of curiosity loops opening and closing curiosity loops and we can do that really well with human desires so an example of that is this i have a very vivid memory of going to town putting makeup on three times by the third time i was crying i love that powerful motive you know it comes down to self-worth and identity and it reflects deep emotional distress and struggles with appearance um you know that desire to feel secure in your own identity right but what i love is then we close it off when we introduce the after state where we say i don't wear makeup most most of days of the week now i forget to wear makeup most days of the week it's like that that real character arc of i was applying makeup so many times and it kept and it was making me cry to i forget to even put it on now you know that's the ultimate character arc right where we've we've had such a problem where we're having to mask that through makeup where we've got to the point where we even forget that makeup even is something that we need to put on and then that taps into human desire of freedom so again a great example of that and even better if in the before state of your ads make sure to then close that curiosity loop at the end whether you're talking when whether you open that curiosity loop in the hook in the before state close it off and a human desire is a great way to open and close curiosity loops so it's that idea of from you know saying something like my acne got so bad to I cancelled dinner with friends because I couldn't cover my spots from I was always bloated to I remember being on holiday watching everyone else head to the beach but I stayed in the room feeling like a stranger in my own body as I held my bloated stomach so you can see it's like way more emotive and something that as humans we can relate to right like no matter who you are you've you've thought at one stage in your life you in a bikini or you in you know your swimming trunks on the holiday you're like god god look don't feel like I look very good here and you you instantly relate it back to that that you know that feeling of not feeling good enough not having confidence and that's what's really really important i've also got a prompt for this so comment down below um human desires and i will send across a prompt that can help flesh out your scripts further to essentially bake in more personal human human desires and stories as part of that so click comment down below human desires and we'll get that sent to everyone.

39:09Loukas:Cool. Now adjusting messaging by market sophistication, which is another area that I see not really focused on enough when we are adapting our messaging and adapting the storytelling to align with the scripts that we're writing. So let's just start this by saying we've got two products, right? We've got an acne serum. I'm using this just because we were just on a video that showed that the audience already understands the problem. They understand acne. They understand breakouts. It's a well-known problem. It's already a very, very saturated category. So this is another identifier of the market sophistication, right?

39:48Loukas:How many solutions are there already out there? Consumers likely have a failed solution. They've tried multiple products with maybe little lasting impact, which is why they're seeking something else. um they're already pretty familiar with the type of language within the market you know people that suffer from acne are going to know some of those you know chemicals or types of things that we might apply to our face to solve the problem um retinol niacinamide you know all of these things these are these skincare products that sound you know scientific but because of how high the market uh the market sophistication is people are likely going to know what they are so we can take that into consideration when we're adapting our messaging.

40:36Loukas:Whereas on the other side is we've got a filtered showerhead. The audience knows the problem. They know that they have spots, dry skin, but they don't necessarily know the cause, which actually could be hard water. It's not commonly understood as a trigger for breakouts, right? So therefore, we know we need to educate more around why hard water is bad for the skin and there's an educational gap there around you know the environmental factors in skin health so as a result you can see really these are solving the same problem but we've got to approach the messaging in very different ways so let's look at how we might adapt them both on either side so acne we don't waste time educating on the problem because they know they have spots we focus on the failed solutions and the emotional pain of trial and error so the example we just shared we weren't educating around spots we were focusing on the girl in that video we were really focusing on the emotional pain deepened right by through human desires that she experienced going through the trial and error of not being able to solve this problem and that's what we need to focus on as a result and we're introducing a new mechanism or why this finally worked eg 47 skins patented formula or rare ingredient whatever it might be what is the usp that differentiates us that we need to bring to the forefront frame the story as a turn as a turning point you know we want to use phrases phrases and bridges that help show okay i'd given up on my skin until now you know there was a turning point again if we look at a standard script framework when we're looking at feature length films they will always have that turning point they will have that realization where they they they realize something has to change um and that's that's that's obviously you know that falls into the three-act structure whereas on the other hand with filtered shower heads we need to lead with education the hidden cause for breakouts that the skin skincare industry don't want you to know.

42:46Loukas:I love that as a hook because it opens the curiosity loop and it bridges the gap really well for us to then go into educating around the problem. I think, again, low market sophistication, we want to be revealing the invisible villain, right? So again, as you can see, we are tying this in to like we would with a normal script structure that you would find in a feature length film the villain here is hard water so we really want to agitate around that villain you know link it to those visual symptoms breakouts itchy skin dry scalp this is where we might bring in our metaphors our visual metaphors you know um washing your face with hard water is as bad as doing X.

43:37Loukas:You may as well be rubbing your face on the pavement if you're going to wash your face with hard water. See what I mean? We're like creating those visual metaphors as a result. Or the ones shared here. It's like washing your face with chalk. Create a light bulb moment in these type of creatives that is low market sophistication. So it's not your cleanser, it's your shower. So suddenly the light bulb switches and they are hooked within the creative from that point onwards. So a few examples of this going from unaware to problem wear, but we'll look at this unaware, low sophistication and then high sophistication.