3 builders who never spoke to each other

Ship the rough cut, it beats the polished one

Four builders measured production value against performance and found it inverted. One made an ad in fifteen seconds that took two and a half times the click-through of the version a paid designer spent days and a hundred and forty eight dollars on. A political campaign that spent hundreds of thousands found its best performer was staff talking into a phone on the commute, and a film-maker given a brand budget spent it on plane tickets rather than polish because ordinary footage read as real. Creative burns out fast, so make a lot of it in very different directions and let the rough ones run.

The method

1. 01

   Creative burns out quickly, so make a lot of it in very different directions, and accept that something filmed on a phone can beat a six figure production if the message is right.

2. 02

   Ship the rough version of an ad creative rather than waiting on design, because polish does not appear to buy performance with enterprise software audiences.

3. 03

   Test a phone-shot clip of your own staff against your produced advertising: the cheap one frequently wins.

4. 04

   Spend a brand's production budget on getting somewhere real rather than on polish, because rough and honest footage outperforms a slick edit.

5. 05

   Lean into a rough amateur look rather than polishing it away, because slick production can work against you.

What it returned

• 15

  Two LinkedIn ads aimed at executives at enterprise software companies: the one he made in 15 seconds got a 2.5x higher clickthrough rate than the one produced by a paid designer, which cost $148 and several days of waiting.

• £800k

  The People's Vote campaign spent over £800k before the 2019 UK election, and its best-performing ad was staff talking to an iPhone on the commute

• Given a budget by Nike, Neistat bought plane tickets and shot ordinary footage with minimal editing, and the result worked because it read as real.

Sources

• B2B SaaS Marketing - Getting started with paid acquisitionChris Frantz · chrisfrantz.com · Instagram – don’t overlook this opportunity · 2020-04-23
• #HYPERGROWTH18: The Cheat Sheet | Corey HainesCasey Neistat · corey.co · Casey Neistat · 2018-09-07
• My favourite low-budget viral adsHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · 6) Furkids Kitty Kommercial — 6M views · undated
• Real MarketingHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · 4) People's Vote Ads · undated
• Looks vs ResultsGreg Kogan · gkogan.co · 2020-12-30