The educational VSL beating standard UGC

Welcome back to Nice Ads. Fraser here are with three more ads I found this week. Today we're going to be learning.

• How to make a great VSL ad

• The best way to increase watch time

• How to make any static format work for you.

Before we get started, though, a quick note: if you're a DTC brand looking for an agency to help you create converting ad creative, that's exactly what we do at Fraggell. You can click here and apply to work with us.

Aloha

👉 Watch in full here

This first video is one that we made for Aloha last month. It takes the form of a longer educational VSL. This new format is currently working across many of our accounts, helping educate customers on the brand and why it stands out from its competitors.

If you watch the video in full, you'll see that we take quite an aggressive approach to educating the customer on Aloha's main competitors and how none of them come close to the quality of product that Aloha provides. We do this with a mix of motion graphics, archive footage, and UGC stock footage. Mixed in with a voice over and a great script.

Videos like this take a lot longer to create than the average UGC video, but that's what can help you stand out from the other people in your space.

Videos like this are only as good as the script. If the script is poor and fails to educate the customer about the problem and make them feel it, the eventual solution will likely be lost on them.

Every VSL video that we create is getting better and better, and I'm really proud of the work that the team has been putting out recently.

If you are looking for something similar to the example above, then it might be worth getting in touch. - Apply to work with us here.

Giiker

👉 Watch in full here

This is a really interesting video ad, and when I watched it, I knew I had to share it with you all here. It's a great example of something I've mentioned a couple of times in this newsletter: hooks that open the loop and encourage people to continue watching the video.

At the start of the video, the creator outlines the premise: he has a certain amount of time to solve the puzzle or he gets water poured all over him. Opening that loop encourages us to continue watching the entire video to see what the outcome is. Techniques like this are often used by YouTubers like MrBeast to increase watch time, and we can do the same thing in our paid media.

He then continues to tell us exactly what the puzzle is he's solving, all the USPs of the product, and why it's so much fun. Not to spoil anything here, but the video does end with the creator having water poured all over him - Closing that loop we all waited to see.

This is a great example of how you can take lo-fi production techniques (by the looks of it, this was just filmed on a phone). But with a great script and a great concept, none of the production matters because the video itself is so engaging.

You can tell whoever made this video consumes a lot of short-form content because it matches exactly the type of media that the target customer is consuming daily.

TLDR:

• Think outside the box when it comes to net new content

• Don’t let product quality hold you back

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Lumma

The "us vs them" static format is probably one of the most popular when it comes to lower funnel creative. We all know the goal of this type of ad: present the old ways of doing something and then show the new way, which happens to be our product.

I think this is the first time that I've seen the product pitted against a number of alternatives instead of just the most popular. I think this is really smart because when it comes to hair removal, not everyone is the same. And so being able to present all the most popular methods is a great way to target all your potential customers instead of just those that fit into one select category.

I'm sure there are several niches where this type of multiple competitor us vs. them ad would work. And I just wanted to share this as a great example of how you can change popular formats to work best for your brand and message.

TLDR:

• Don't be scared to alter existing formats to work for you.

• Sometimes keeping it simple with statics is the best way.

That's all for this week's Nice Ads. Thanks very much for taking the time to read.

If you want to learn a bit more about ad creative, then you can check out my YouTube channel here. There's a ton of really valuable videos on there, and I post once a week.

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