You will be able to plan social and video ads that fit the format people are scrolling through.
Mei Ling paid a videographer to make a thirty-second ad for her cake business. It had soft music, slow shots of cakes on a marble counter, her logo at the start and a list of flavours at the end. It looked lovely. On TikTok and Instagram Reels, almost nobody watched past the first two seconds. A week later she posted a clip filmed on her phone, of her piping a dinosaur onto a cake while her toddler watched from the kitchen doorway. It was shaky and unedited, and people watched it to the end.
That gap is not bad luck. It reflects how people use short-video feeds, and it changes what a good ad looks like there.
People open TikTok and Reels to watch short videos made by other people. Their thumbs have learned to recognise an advertisement in an instant and move past it. A polished commercial with a logo, studio lighting and a voice-over announces itself as an ad from the first frame, and many people swipe before it has said anything.
Ads that look like native short videos tend to hold attention better. That means vertical video filmed on a phone, a real person talking to the camera or doing something real, natural sound or a simple voice, and on-screen text in the style the platform's own creators use. TikTok's own guidance for advertisers says much the same thing, and you will see the pattern in the top ads section of the TikTok Creative Center from lesson 1.4, Audit three live ads with auction eyes.
This does not mean careless. A native-looking ad still needs clear sound, good light and a clear point. It means made for the feed, by someone who watches the feed, rather than made for a television and cut down.
It also matters for the auction. Remember from lesson 1.3, TikTok and other platforms work on the same idea, that platforms weigh how people respond. An ad people watch tends to be treated better than one they skip, so holding attention lowers what you pay as well as raising what you get.
On a feed, you have a moment to stop the thumb. Whatever appears first, in picture and in words, decides whether anyone sees the rest. So open on the most interesting thing you have.
Usually that is the problem or the result. The problem is the situation your buyer recognises: a child crying over homework, a blouse sticking to someone's back on a crowded MRT train, a birthday party next week and no cake ordered. The result is what the product makes possible: the finished cake being carried out to a room of excited children, a woman walking into a meeting looking sharp and comfortable.
Do not open on your logo, your shop front or a greeting. Those mean nothing to someone who does not know you yet. Mei Ling's dinosaur clip worked partly because the first frame was a half-finished dinosaur, and viewers wanted to see it finished.
How to write and test hooks for organic posts is taught in Social media and short-form video, and Content and copywriting that people read covers hooks in lesson 2.3, Hooks for social posts and short video. The same skills apply here. The difference with an ad is that you are paying for each view, so a weak opening wastes money as well as attention.
After the hook, show the product doing its job. A cake being cut and served. A blouse being worn on a commute, then in a meeting, then at lunch. A tutor working through a real exam question with a student. Showing beats describing, because the viewer sees the evidence for themselves.
Name who it is for early, in words or by showing them. As lesson 4.2, Broad targeting and why platforms now push it, explained, your creative now does much of the targeting. If Farah's video opens with text that says starting your first office job, the platform learns that women starting a new job respond, and finds more of them. A video that could be for anyone gives it nothing to learn from.
Then make the offer clearly, and end with what to do next. Lesson 5.3, One offer, one proof, one action, covers that part in detail.
Put together, most short video ads follow a simple shape. The hook is the problem or result, in the first moments. The proof is the product in use, or a real customer, or a demonstration. The offer is what you want them to do and why now. Mei Ling's next ad followed it: the half-finished dinosaur cake, then the finished one being carried into a party, then text saying custom kids' cakes in Punggol, order a week ahead, tap to message.
You probably already have material that works this way. A post that did well organically, a question customers always ask, or a moment from your working day that people find interesting can all become the core of an ad. In the activity below you will take one of them and rewrite it as a short ad script with a hook, proof and an offer.
Rewrite one of your best organic posts or ideas as a short ad script with a hook, proof and an offer.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).