Hey pookies,
Dario Zenis hosted a call in our server this Monday. He broke down 43 drama story ads that are spending millions of dollars right now at the top-of-funnel for a wide range of products and niches on Facebook. Here are the top 3 learnings you can use this week, but I HIGHLY suggest you go and watch the full call. The Youtube link is at the bottom of this email.
1. Start with who they are.
Dario Zenis | 26 Oct
First, the picture he used
Dario started with a picture, so the rest of this makes sense. Picture a river.
The water is already going one way.
Throw a rock in and you get a splash. Then the water keeps going the same way.
The rock is a new benefit in an ad. It can stop someone for a second. It does not change where their life is headed.
The riverbed is the ground under the water. That is what sets the path.
Move the bed, and the whole river has to go a new way.
Dario said these story ads move the riverbed. They do not open on a new benefit. They deal with who the buyer gets to keep being. If the ad protects that person, buying is what comes next.
People carry 3 answers to who they are
Dario calls these cards, because people willingly show them to others. Ask what they care about, or ask about their work, and one of the 3 comes out in the first 2 minutes. In writing, the line usually starts with I am.
Here is one man from an ad he played. His name is Bill. He is a scaffolder.
Where they come from. The past they claim. Family, hometown, or the trade they grew up in.
Who they are to other people. Bill is the scaffolder. That is what he is to the men on the job.
What they are proud of. Bill has been up on that scaffold for 30 years. That is the line he stands on.
Find it in their words. Do not make it up.
Do not invent who they are while you sit at your desk. The buyer has to see themselves in the line. If the line is your guess, they read it and think, that is not me. Then the rest of the ad has nothing to hold onto. Use a sentence they already say about themselves. Pull the full sentence, not a summary you wrote.
Pull those sentences from these places.
Your reviews
Bad reviews on competitors
Comments under competitor ads
Reddit
Facebook groups and other forums
Skool groups. These are more private, so people say things they will not say on Facebook.
Read each sentence and ask 3 questions. Here is what that looks like for Bill.
What is he proud of? 30 years up on the scaffold.
How does he want to be seen? As the man who can still do that job.
What is he scared of being seen as? The man who is finished, sitting at home, while the job goes on without him.
Count what keeps coming back. Most markets only have 2 to 4 of these that a lot of buyers share. The one that shows up most is the person the ad is going to protect.
He also said 2 fears show up in almost every market.
Losing control of their own life.
Being lied to again.
Try it this week
Before you write the next story ad, do this.
Pull the I am lines from reviews, comments, Reddit, Facebook groups, and Skool.
Sort them into the 3 cards.
Keep the card that shows up the most.
2. Knock that identity down in public.
Dario Zenis | 26 Oct
The opening has one job.
Show who they are proud to be.
Then show real life knocking that down, while another person is watching.
Dario said this usually happens in the first 10 seconds. If the viewer does not feel that crash, they leave. That crash is what holds people for 4 minutes, 10 minutes, even 15.
Let them overhear it
For most of the story, the characters talk to each other. The viewer is listening in.
If a friend looks at you and says you look good, you wonder what they want.
If you hear 2 people at the next table say it, you believe them.
Dario said a study found the same thing. People were more persuaded by a message they thought they were overhearing, when the topic mattered to them.
What that looks like
Bill, the scaffolder. He has been up there 30 years. That is who he is. His knees are going. The boss says on Monday he is on the ground. Bill answers with the 30 years. The thing he is proud of just got hit, and his boss is standing right there.
A dad, in a different ad. He runs at his daughter's boyfriend and ends up on his back on the lawn. She tells him to get up. He cannot. The first 35 seconds never say the word weight. You still know what happened. A father just lost his place in front of his daughter.
If they cannot see the result
Someone asked what to do when the buyer cannot see the change from the outside. His example was high cholesterol. A blood test number is hard to show.
Dario said the number on their lab test results is the least interesting part.
Ask what the problem stops them from doing.
Less energy means they play less with their kids.
Then they are not the father they want to be. Show that. The test result is only the reason.
Try it this week
Write the opening before the rest of the script.
Name the card they are proud of.
Hit it with real life in the first 10 seconds.
Put another person in the scene. Do not talk to the viewer yet.
3. Run the rest of the brief in this order.
Dario Zenis | 26 Oct
You already did the first 2 steps above.
You found who they are.
You opened with that getting knocked down in front of someone.
Here is the rest, in the order Dario uses.
Show a life they do not want
You do not tell the viewer who to become. That is hard for people to accept.
Show other people living a life the viewer does not want.
The viewer steps away from those people on their own.
Every step away is a step toward the person the ad is protecting.
In the scaffolder ad, the doctor says most of the men who get a new knee do not go back up on the scaffold.
Bill does not want that life.
The ad never says the surgery is bad.
It shows the life he refuses, so he can stay a scaffolder.
The turmeric is how he stays one.
Dario went through 43 of these ads.
Only 13 name a group like that.
Almost none put the line in a friend's mouth.
He said that is where you can do better than the ads that are already winning.
Let the friend say it. Then the hero says, that is not the life I want.
One rule, or this backfires
Those other people have to be a group the viewer is not already in. If you point at the viewer and name a flaw they already feel, it feels like an attack, and they fight you.
Dario showed this on a veteran ad. The ad turned to the viewer and said he came home and got soft. That is the attack.
His fix is to talk about other men. Men who stopped going to the reunions and let the room forget them. The viewer thinks, I do not want to be those guys.
Let them stay who they are
When a man's body is giving out, he still acts like the strongest man in the room.
Talk to that man.
Do not talk to him like he is weak.
Do not tell him he is wrong about who he is.
Hand him a better version of the same man, so he can do something and still keep his pride.
In a beetroot ad, David has built warehouses for 35 years and his body is quitting. He says if the work is finished, he is finished. He would rather walk out than get carried out. That is the strong man talking.
His wife does not argue. She does not say he still has years left. She asks questions only he can answer.
Who taught the younger man everything he knows.
Who can tell when a supplier is lying.
Then she gives him a new place to stand. For 35 years he was the strongest man in that building. Now he can be the one who knows the most. He is still the strong man. He is directing the work instead of doing the lifting.
That scene has a job. A lot of men will not take a supplement, because taking it means they have to admit they need help. This ad lets him stay the strong man and still do something about his body.
The failure stays off him too. He swallowed a beetroot bottle for 3 months and nothing happened.
The younger man does not call him stupid.
He says David had the right idea, and he bought the wrong beet.
The bottle is what failed.
Someone else hands over the way out
The answer comes from another person in the story. It does not come from the brand talking to the camera.
In Bill's ad, it is his friend at the pub. That friend had the same bad knee.
In David's ad, it is the younger man who brings the beetroot that actually works.
Make that person someone who does not need the viewer to buy. In one beetroot ad, a doctor asks a woman if he can buy it from her. She says she does not sell anything. We trust her because she is not trying to make the sale.
Also make them someone who failed first. Bill's friend says he tried other turmeric, then found out he had been buying the wrong kind. Someone who has already been through it is trusted more than someone who has always been fine.
Show a way out before you name the product
If you do not, people leave.
Then make them wait to see if it works, so they keep watching.
In the scaffolder ad, a friend at the pub says he was put on the knee-replacement list for 12 to 18 months, and he said no. That is the way out. The turmeric comes later.
In one of the top Lymphoria ads, you see the product about halfway through, and you hear the product name about two-thirds of the way in. Dario gave that as the timing to remember.
Say who they are where they can overhear it
Do not look at the viewer and say "you are the kind of person who." They notice. They wonder if you are flattering them, and what you want.
Let one character say it to another. The viewer is listening in, the same way they listened at the next table.
In the dad ad, the grandmother tells him that his girl grew up thinking he was the strongest man alive.
In David's ad, his wife tells him that for 35 years he was the strongest man in that building.
Keep that line only a little ahead of how they see themselves today. Do not call them a champion. That is too big, and they do not believe you.
Close enough that they can believe it.
Far enough that they want it.
The grandmother does not ask the dad to become his own father. That would be too big a jump. She asks him to get back to where he can.
Do not finish that thought in the middle of the story. Save it for the end. Turn to the viewer only after the story is done. Then it feels like they recognized themselves. It does not feel like a sales pitch.
The product is the new thing they do so they can stay who they are. Bill does not stop being a scaffolder. He takes the turmeric. By the end he is back on the scaffold. On the stairs, someone asks if he is all right, and he says he has got this.
Try it this week
On the next story brief, go in this order.
Pick who they are from their own words.
In the first 10 seconds, show real life knocking that down while someone else watches.
Have a friend name a group the hero will not join.
Have someone in the story, who failed first and is not making the sale, show the way out before you name the product.
End on who they still are. Then ask for the click.
Watch the full call
- George Rose
DTC Performance Circle
George's Grok Bot drafts these emails. George reads and approves each one before it is sent. He checks every fact and makes sure each idea is useful.
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