Why ring lights are ruining your ads (and what to use instead)

Welcome back to Nice Ads! Another week and another 3 creatives I’ve found to share with you.

This week we’re going over:

• Making a great spokesperson ad

• Why images are important to your growth

• How to make all your ads look 100% better for free.

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Leaf Shave

👉 Watch in full here

We made this creative for one of our clients, Leaf Shave, and had an absolute blast filming it.

The idea of this video was to create something similar to those Mac vs. PC TV ads from the 2000s. Very direct and focused on the reasons why you pick one product over the other.

We shot this in our studio and did a couple of variations, one of which introduced another character called Nick-e (Get it?) This was a true us versus them, with Nick-e being a keen user of disposable razors and Lee Fraser being the advocate for the Leaf Razor.

The producer working on the account gave us the idea for this ad. Then, a creative strategist built out and scripted the idea, and the client loved it!

The key to a good spokesperson is introducing key characters that the audience can understand, along with humour in the script and visually to help make the video more watchable and less like a boring ad.

The ad has just started testing in the account, so it's early days right now, but I'm excited to see the results.

If you want something similar created for your brand that can lower your CPAs by 30% and help you achieve creative diversity then Apply to work with us here.

DEEPS

One of the best things you can do as a brand is collect as much high-quality imagery as you can, whether that's UGC style or high-production studio images.

This obviously becomes much easier with the new ChatGPT model. However, I don't believe you could create ads like the above from scratch using this (I'm open to anyone to prove me wrong here).

But the idea of a rich, diverse image library is that you could very quickly create and test different messaging and see what works.

I particularly like this creative because it feels very natural and organic. The demographics that they're trying to target with the imagery they've used are clear. You can do a lot of targeting by showing the right people in your ads.

TLDR:

• Including your demographic in your ads helps target the creative

• Building up an extensive image library is key to scale

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Lynott Jewellery

👉 Watch in full here

This is a really nice creative piece, and I wanted to showcase it today to discuss lighting.

Lighting is the key to making any video look good, no matter what camera it's been filmed with. Just by changing your lighting, you can make a six-year-old iPhone look like the newest and most up-to-date model. There's a reason Hollywood films have such massive lighting setups.

But if you're just making ad creative at home, what can you do to improve your lighting? Here's a couple of tips.

• Whenever you have the opportunity, film beside/in front of a window to take advantage of natural light

• Never use a ring light; instead, invest in some kind of soft professional lighting. I love the products from Amaran and Aputure. We use these in our studio.

• A rule of thumb, the softer the light, the more flattering; the harder the light, the more dramatic.

This example looks so good because she clearly filmed it in front of a window and inside her bathroom. Her bathroom is vital because its white interior helps reflect the natural light, allowing for a nice-looking image.

If you want to make great-looking ads, just to learn how to shape and control light, this will be the best investment you'll ever make.

TLDR:

• Great lighting makes great ads.

• Filming in bathrooms can be a hack to get good-looking footage on a budget.

That's it for Nice Ads this week, thanks very much for reading. I appreciate the time you've taken out of your day.

I just released a new YouTube video in which I break down a creative we recently made for one of our clients. It's packed full of valuable lessons for brands of all levels. Give it a watch here.

See you next week.

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