arkaos 4.26.0 → 4.28.0

package/departments/marketing/skills/ad-creative/references/hook-system.md

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+# The Hook System
+
+The first three seconds decide whether the rest of the ad exists. Hooks are the highest-leverage unit of paid creative work — and hook *diversity* is what earns incremental learning: distinct hooks reach distinct pockets of the audience, while near-identical openings mostly re-test what you already know about the same one. This reference is a complete system for generating, diagnosing, and iterating hooks — not a list of one-liners.
+
+Use it inside Mode 1/3 generation (hooks for new concepts), Mode 2 iteration (diagnosing why an ad underperforms), and the creative strategy loop in [creative-roadmap.md](creative-roadmap.md).
+
+---
+
+## A Hook Is Three Components, Not a Line
+
+In video, the hook is the simultaneous combination of:
+
+| Component | What it is | Job |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Visual action** | What is literally happening on screen in seconds 0–3 | Stop the thumb |
+| **Spoken line** | The first words of VO or dialogue | Open the loop |
+| **Caption text** | On-screen header/overlay text | Anchor the claim for sound-off viewers |
+
+**The no-duplication rule:** the three components must complement, never repeat. If the VO says "I stopped paying $200/mo for my gym" while the caption reads "I stopped paying $200/mo" over a static talking head, two of the three slots are wasted. Strong hooks split the work — visual shows the cancellation email, VO says the line, caption names the alternative. When writing hooks, write all three columns explicitly; a hook spec with one column filled in is a third of a hook.
+
+Static ads collapse this to two components (visual + headline) — the same rule applies: the headline must not caption the image.
+
+---
+
+## The Generation Pipeline
+
+Work top-down; hooks written without the upstream steps read like everyone else's ads.
+
+```
+Segment → Motivation → Format → Hook (three components)
+```
+
+1. **Segment** — which specific buyer this hook addresses. Not the whole ICP: a slice with a shared situation (from the Grounded Inputs corpus: reviews, comments, sales-call language). The narrower the segment, the sharper the hook.
+2. **Motivation** — the single pain, desire, or objection that moves this segment, in *their* words. Pull verbatim phrases from reviews and comments; the corpus language always outperforms marketing paraphrase.
+3. **Format** — the delivery vehicle: street interview, POV selfie, screen recording, unboxing, side-by-side demo, text-on-screen static, founder-to-camera, reaction stitch. Pick the format *before* writing the line — the same motivation reads completely differently as a street-interview answer vs. a confession-to-camera.
+4. **Hook** — now write the three components for this segment × motivation × format cell.
+
+**Output as a hook matrix** so coverage is visible:
+
+```
+| # | Segment | Motivation (verbatim source) | Format | Visual action | Spoken line | Caption |
+```
+
+Generate across the matrix, not down a single column — ten hooks for ten segment×motivation cells beat thirty rewordings of one cell. This is the same angle-diversity principle as the static template library: matrix diversity is audience diversity.
+
+---
+
+## Hook Opening Moves
+
+A menu of proven opening structures. Cycle through them like the static templates — don't cluster on favorites:
+
+| Move | Shape | Watch out |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Curiosity gap** | Withhold the noun: "Nobody tells you what actually causes this" | Must pay off within the ad or it's clickbait that poisons CVR |
+| **Bold claim** | A specific, falsifiable statement: "This replaced my entire morning routine" | Needs substantiation on screen or in the on-ramp |
+| **First-person confession** | "I was doing [common thing] completely wrong" | Reads fake without lived-in detail |
+| **Contrast / before-after** | Two states shown or named in the first beat | The transformation must be visually honest — see compliance notes in SKILL.md |
+| **Relatability / POV** | Mirror a hyper-specific situation: "POV: it's 3pm and you're on your fourth coffee" | Specificity is the entire mechanic; generic POV is invisible |
+| **Question** | Ask the exact question the buyer types into search or ChatGPT | Use their phrasing verbatim from the corpus |
+| **Countdown / gamified** | A timer or on-screen challenge that promises a payoff at the end | Payoff must exist; hold-rate collapses on cheats |
+| **Proof-first** | Lead with the receipt — the result screenshot, the stat, the demo money-shot | Strongest when the proof brags by itself |
+
+---
+
+## The Diagnostic Funnel
+
+Each metric in the delivery funnel isolates a different component. When an ad underperforms, read the funnel to find *which part* to fix instead of scrapping the whole ad:
+
+| Stage | Metric | If it's weak, the problem is | Fix |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| Stop | Thumbstop / 3-sec view rate | **Visual action** (and caption) | New visual opening; same everything else |
+| Stay | Hold rate (3s → 15s / 50% view) | **The on-ramp** — what follows the hook | Rework seconds 3–15, not the hook |
+| Click | CTR | Desire/offer clarity mid-ad | Sharpen the promise, CTA, or proof |
+| Convert | CVR post-click | Congruence — the page doesn't continue the ad | Fix the landing page or the claim, per **cro** |
+
+Two rules this table enforces:
+
+- **A great thumbstop is not a great ad.** A clickbait visual that attracts the wrong viewers shows up as high thumbstop + collapsed hold/CVR. Read the whole funnel before declaring a winning hook.
+- **One component per iteration.** Change the visual OR the on-ramp OR the offer framing per test cycle — matching the one-variable rule in Common Mistakes.
+
+---
+
+## The On-Ramp Rule
+
+The on-ramp is seconds ~3–15: the bridge from hook to body. **A good on-ramp logically extends the hook's premise; a bad one pivots to a product pitch that abandons it.** If the hook promises "what actually causes this," the next beat must start explaining the cause — not introduce the brand story.
+
+Corollary: **every hook test is also an on-ramp test.** Swapping a new hook onto an existing ad body usually breaks the premise-bridge; when testing hooks, re-write the on-ramp to match each one. Hold rate is the on-ramp's metric — diagnose it separately from thumbstop.
+
+---
+
+## Fidelity Laddering
+
+Match production cost to evidence strength (production tiers are defined in [creative-roadmap.md](creative-roadmap.md)):
+
+- **Hunches ship low-fidelity within a day or two:** statics, text-on-screen video, voiceover-over-b-roll, remixes of existing footage. The goal is a cheap signal on the *angle*, not a polished ad.
+- **Validated angles earn high-fidelity:** creator shoots, street interviews, staged demos. Only spend production budget on hooks whose low-fi version already showed a funnel signal (even a single-metric win — a hold-rate spike on an ugly static is evidence).
+
+Testing a hunch with an expensive shoot and testing a proven angle with a throwaway static are both mistakes — the ladder runs in one direction.
+
+---
+
+## Grounding Rules (inherited, non-negotiable)
+
+Hooks inherit every grounding rule from SKILL.md: every hook cites the corpus source its motivation came from; no invented claims, stats, or testimonials; verbatim customer language over paraphrase. Additionally, mine **organic content in the niche** (top-performing TikToks/Reels/posts, via the **scraping** skill or the social listening tooling in **social**) for the audience's actual vocabulary — the words the niche uses ("GLP-1" vs. the clinical term, the slang for the pain) belong in the caption and spoken line. Organic mining is language research, not copying: take the vocabulary and the visual conventions, never a creator's specific creative.
+
+---
+
+## Common Failure Modes
+
+- **Thirty rewordings of one cell** — variation without matrix coverage; diversity of segment×motivation is the point
+- **Components duplicating each other** — three slots saying one thing
+- **Hook tested, on-ramp inherited** — premise-bridge broken, hold rate blamed on the hook
+- **Funnel read stops at thumbstop** — clickbait winners scale into CVR craters
+- **Polished hunches** — high-fidelity production spent on unvalidated angles
+- **Marketing-voice captions** — the corpus and the niche's organic content define the vocabulary; "revolutionary formula" appears in neither

package/departments/marketing/skills/ad-creative/references/imessage-video-ads.md

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+# iOS-Native Reveal Video Ads (iMessage, ChatGPT, Apple Notes, AirDrop)
+
+A family of 9:16 social-native video formats that recreate a familiar iOS surface in real time and let the brand emerge inside it. The flagship is the **iMessage chat reveal** — someone sends a screenshot of a result or product, a friend reacts and asks what it is, and the conversation reveals the brand, usually with a promo code. Message bubbles pop in over ~15–22 seconds with authentic send/receive sounds, then a static brand end card lands the CTA. The same architecture powers **ChatGPT reveals**, **Apple Notes reveals**, and **AirDrop reveals** — covered in [Other iOS-Native Reveal Surfaces](#other-ios-native-reveal-surfaces) below.
+
+The format works because it borrows the most-read UI on earth. A chat thread is a familiar, high-attention dramatization — it mirrors how real recommendations happen, so the viewer leans in instead of scrolling past. The CTA arrives conversationally ("use code FREEPACK") instead of as a hard sell, which keeps the ad-skip reflex from firing until the pitch has already landed. Run it only as a clearly labeled paid placement (Meta's "Sponsored" tag does the disclosure work); never seed it organically as if it were a real leaked conversation.
+
+Credit: this reference distills the format popularized by Shiv Sakhuja and the Gooseworks team ([@shivsakhuja](https://x.com/shivsakhuja), [gooseworks-ai/gooseworks-ads-skills](https://github.com/gooseworks-ai/gooseworks-ads-skills)), who report the format performing strongly on Meta.
+
+---
+
+## When to Use This Format
+
+**Good fit:**
+- Reaction/discovery ads where the punchline is the recipient's curiosity ("wait, what app is that?")
+- Promo-code offers — the conversational delivery feels far less ad-like than a code on a slate
+- Products with a screenshot-able result: a number, a dashboard, a receipt, a before/after
+- UGC-style angles when you don't have UGC creators on tap
+
+**Poor fit:**
+- Considered B2B purchases where a casual text exchange undercuts credibility
+- Products with nothing visual or numeric to screenshot (fix the hook first, not the format)
+- Brands whose compliance review can't approve dramatized conversations (regulated industries — check first)
+
+**Platform fit:** Built for Meta Reels/Stories placements (9:16, 1080×1920) with a 1:1 center-crop variant for feed. Works on TikTok and YouTube Shorts with the same master file.
+
+---
+
+## Compliance and Grounding
+
+This is a **dramatization** — a scripted conversation, not a real one. That's a standard, legitimate ad device, but two rules keep it honest and on the right side of FTC guidance:
+
+1. **Every claim in the thread must be true of the product.** The race time, the savings math, the "5 minutes a day" — ground each one in a real customer result, review, or verifiable product fact, exactly as the Grounded Inputs rules in SKILL.md require. The conversation is fictional; the facts inside it can't be.
+2. **Don't present the thread as a real testimonial.** No real customer names, no "this is an actual text from a customer" framing, no fabricated endorsements. The format persuades through recognizability, not through pretending to be found footage.
+
+If a claim needs a disclaimer on your landing page, it needs one on this ad too.
+
+---
+
+## Concept Angles
+
+Most iMessage ads fit one of six angles. Pick the angle before writing any copy — the most common failure mode ("script is fine but the ad feels off") is an angle mismatch, not bad lines. The strongest hooks share one of three traits: a specific number, a small act of self-trust, or a physically novel product mechanic.
+
+| Angle | The hook attachment | The reveal |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Result-as-screenshot** | A number that brags by itself — race time, app summary, dashboard stat | "X minutes a day. that's it." |
+| **Setup flex** | A photo of your space — tiny apartment gym, race-kit corner, desk setup | "this is the whole setup" |
+| **Cancellation moment** | A confirmation receipt — gym cancellation email, "subscription cancelled" page | "$X/mo → $Y/mo. do the math" |
+| **Feature-as-punchline** | A short clip of the product mechanic in motion | The mechanic *is* the brand |
+| **Friend-asks-friend (inverse)** | The *peer* opens with the wow — "how are you doing this 😭" | *You* reply with the brand |
+| **Receipt-as-hook** | A mundane financial document — statement, App Store receipt | A small act of self-trust |
+
+---
+
+## Anatomy of the Ad
+
+```
+0:00  Hook attachment lands (the screenshot the whole chat is about)
+      ↓ short reactions, 250–450ms apart ("bro no way" / "wait is that real")
+0:06  The question — "what app is that??"
+      ↓ typing indicator … then the brand-name reply
+0:12  The pitch, in texting voice — one or two bubbles max
+0:15  The code — "use FREEPACK, first pack's free" (code renders link-underlined)
+0:17  Beat of silence, then the closer — "bet" / "ok downloading"
+0:18  300ms crossfade → static brand end card: logo, code, tagline (~3s)
+```
+
+**Script rules:**
+
+- **8–14 bubbles total.** Shorter reads thin; longer loses the scroll-past viewer.
+- **Write in real texting voice.** Lowercase, fragments, one emoji max per message, no marketing adjectives. Read it aloud as two friends — any bubble that sounds like ad copy gets cut.
+- **The brand appears once, late.** The thread is about the *result* until someone asks. Naming the brand in bubble two kills the reveal.
+- **Pacing has rhythm, not a metronome.** One-word reactions fire 250–450ms apart; sentence replies get 600–900ms of air after them; leave ~600ms of silence before the final reaction so it lands.
+- **Typing indicators go before sentence-length peer replies**, optional before short reactions. The indicator appearing is silent (see SFX rules below).
+- **The promo code goes inside a bubble**, styled with iOS's link-detection underline, *and* on the end card. Conversational delivery first, reinforcement second.
+
+---
+
+## Production Routes
+
+Three ways to produce it, in order of control:
+
+### Route 1: Off-the-shelf skill (fastest)
+
+Gooseworks distributes their pipeline as an installable agent skill — `npx gooseworks install --all`, then invoke the goose-ads skill from your agent. It handles rendering, recording, SFX, and stitching end to end. Use this to validate the format before building anything custom. (Their ads-skills source repo is public but carries no open-source license — treat it as reference reading, not code to vendor.)
+
+### Route 2: Code-based pipeline (full control)
+
+The architecture that produces a convincing result: render the chat as HTML/CSS mimicking the iMessage UI, drive the animation with a timeline script, record it headlessly with Playwright, and assemble audio + end card with ffmpeg.
+
+1. **Script as data.** Store the thread as JSON: participants (peer name, initials, avatar color), ordered messages (`from`, `text`, attachment paths, typing-indicator flags), theme, header. The script is reviewable and re-renderable without touching code.
+2. **Render the chat UI in HTML/CSS.** Dark theme reads most native. Two variants: full-bleed chat, or the chat inside an iPhone frame (status bar + Dynamic Island) over a brand-relevant background photo — the framed variant reads more native in-feed and is the better default.
+3. **Animate with a timeline, record in ONE continuous session.** All bubbles exist in the DOM but hidden (`display: none` — not `opacity: 0`, or the thread pre-allocates space and never "grows"). A driver script walks a timeline array revealing each bubble, driving the composer, and auto-scrolling. Never record scene-by-scene and concat — every page reload causes a visible micro-flicker.
+4. **Type the composer for every sent bubble.** The typed text must exactly equal the sent text (a mismatch reads fake on second watch). Pace ~12–15 chars/sec with ±30% per-character jitter so it feels like thumbs, not a script.
+5. **Record at native output resolution.** Set both the Playwright `viewport` *and* `recordVideo.size` to 1080×1920 — if you omit `recordVideo.size`, Playwright records a scaled-down video by default. Recording small and upscaling ships soft, blurry bubble text.
+6. **Layer audio with ffmpeg.** SFX cues computed deterministically from the same timeline that drove the recording, so sounds land exactly on bubble pops.
+7. **Stitch: chat → 300ms crossfade → static end card.** ffmpeg's `xfade` requires both inputs to match in resolution, pixel format, and frame rate — render the end card to a fixed-frame MP4 at the same specs as the chat recording before fading. Export the 9:16 master plus a 1:1 center crop.
+
+### Route 3: Remotion (templated scale)
+
+Once a winning script structure emerges, rebuild it as a Remotion composition (see [generative-tools.md](generative-tools.md)) with the thread JSON as props. Then variations — new hooks, new codes, new personas — are data changes, not re-productions. Right move at the "we're testing 10 script variants a week" stage, not for the first ad.
+
+---
+
+## Craft Rules (the details that sell the illusion)
+
+These are the difference between "feels like a real chat" and "feels like a mockup":
+
+- **The real send/receive sounds, never generic notification sounds.** The iMessage feel is mostly the audio. BigSoundBank hosts recordings of Apple's message sounds under CC0: send whoosh (`bigsoundbank.com/UPLOAD/mp3/1313.mp3`, ~0.5s) and receive tritone (`bigsoundbank.com/UPLOAD/mp3/1111.mp3` — trim to ~1.4s with a 400ms fade). Normalize loud (≈ -9 LUFS) so they cut through the music. Note the recordings being CC0 doesn't mean Apple has licensed its sound marks or UI trade dress — this is standard practice in the format, but regulated brands and risk-averse legal teams should review the iMessage mimicry as a whole; a generic chat-app skin (neutral bubbles, non-Apple sounds) is the fallback that keeps the mechanic.
+- **No sound on the typing indicator.** iOS is silent when someone starts typing. Play the receive sound only when the actual bubble replaces the dots. This is the single most common tell.
+- **Music bed: quiet lofi/hip-hop instrumental.** ~30% volume, highpass around 60Hz to clear room for the SFX, fade out ~1.5s before the code reveal so the CTA lands in relative silence.
+- **Static end card — no zoom, no Ken Burns drift.** The brand slate must land hard; a drifting end card reads as filler.
+- **Real brand logo SVG on the end card, never CSS-styled text.** Font-approximated wordmarks look amateur even when close. Pull the official SVG from the brand's press kit, Wikimedia, or brandfetch.com.
+- **Hook screenshots: mimic the real app's UI, don't AI-generate it.** AI-generated app UIs ship garbled chrome that reads as slop. Build a small HTML page copying the actual app's brand colors, typography, and layout conventions (the Strava-orange strip, the "Public · 2h ago" timestamp) and screenshot it. Reserve AI image generation for *photographic* hooks — a beach photo, a lifestyle shot, the framed variant's background.
+- **Audio mixing gotcha:** ffmpeg's `amix` divides volume by input count by default — pass `normalize=0` or the whole mix comes out mysteriously quiet. Then run the mix through a limiter with the ceiling just under full scale (e.g. `alimiter=limit=0.95`, ≈ -0.4 dB) so it's loud without clipping.
+
+---
+
+## Quality Checklist
+
+Before shipping:
+
+- [ ] Every factual claim in the thread traces to a real review, result, or product fact (Grounded Inputs)
+- [ ] Script reads as real texting voice when read aloud — no marketing adjectives in bubbles
+- [ ] Brand name appears only after the peer asks
+- [ ] No sound on any typing indicator; receive SFX fires when the text bubble lands
+- [ ] SFX land exactly on bubble pops (spot-check first and last)
+- [ ] Every sent bubble had a full composer drive; typed text equals sent text
+- [ ] No micro-flicker anywhere in the chat — the only cut is chat → end card (300ms crossfade)
+- [ ] Promo code is link-underlined in its bubble and repeated on the end card
+- [ ] End card is static with the real logo SVG
+- [ ] Master is native 1080×1920; 1:1 variant is a crop, not a squeeze
+- [ ] Final bubble gets ~600–800ms of air before the crossfade
+- [ ] Audio is limited just under full scale (no clipping); music never fights the SFX
+
+---
+
+## Iterating the Format
+
+Treat the thread as the variable and the pipeline as fixed. Test in this order — hook first, everything else after:
+
+1. **Hook attachment** — the screenshot is the thumbnail and the first 2 seconds; it decides the scroll-stop
+2. **Angle** — result-flex vs. cancellation vs. inverse changes who the viewer identifies with
+3. **Code reveal phrasing** — "first pack's free with FREEPACK" vs. "FREEPACK gets you one free"
+4. **Peer persona** — name, avatar, and texting style shift the perceived audience
+5. **Length** — try a 12-bubble and an 8-bubble cut of the same script
+
+The same architecture extends to further surfaces too — WhatsApp, Slack, a search box — same timeline-driven recording, different UI shell.
+
+---
+
+## Other iOS-Native Reveal Surfaces
+
+Everything above about production (UI mockup → timeline-driven continuous recording → deterministic SFX cues → static end card), grounding, and disclosure carries over unchanged. What changes per surface is the *persuasion mechanic* and a handful of craft details.
+
+| Surface | Persuasion mechanic | Reach for it when |
+|---|---|---|
+| **iMessage** | A friend's recommendation — social proof through dialogue | The product is discovered through results people share ("what app is that?") |
+| **ChatGPT** | An authoritative answer to the viewer's own question | The problem is question-shaped — something people would literally type into ChatGPT |
+| **Apple Notes** | A private confession made public — first-person, no dialogue | The angle is transformation or realization ("things nobody told me about 45") |
+| **AirDrop** | A spontaneous peer share — "someone nearby thought this was worth sending you *right now*," with a built-in accept/decline decision | The product is something people pass to each other (a deal, a link, a find, a file) and the accept-tap can *be* the reveal |
+
+The strongest signal for choosing: which of these surfaces already fills your audience's day. Recommendation products want iMessage; advice-seeking problems want ChatGPT; identity/transformation stories want Notes; and anything people spontaneously pass to each other wants AirDrop.
+
+### ChatGPT Reveal
+
+The viewer identifies with the *asker*. The typed question is the hook and must be the target customer's verbatim question — awkward phrasing and all ("why is my stomach so bloated all of a sudden at 47?"). The streaming answer names the problem's real mechanism, then the solution category; the brand lands in the answer's recommendation or in a typed follow-up ("what's the best one?").
+
+**Craft details:**
+- **Stream the answer in word chunks**, not character-by-character (that's typing, not generation) and not whole paragraphs at once. A subtle tick underneath the stream and a clean stop when the response completes; no iMessage tritones anywhere.
+- **Type the question like thumbs, stream the answer like a model.** Two distinct rhythms — the contrast is what reads as "real ChatGPT."
+- **Keep the answer scannable:** short paragraphs, a bolded phrase or a short list, exactly the way ChatGPT actually formats. A wall of text breaks the illusion and loses the viewer.
+- OpenAI's interface is their trade dress — same legal-review posture as the Apple UI mimicry note above, with a generic "AI assistant" skin as the fallback.
+
+**Compliance — stricter here than anywhere else in this family.** The "answer" is your ad copy wearing a lab coat: an authority costume. Every claim in it needs the same substantiation as a claim in your own voice, and the format's borrowed authority raises the bar, not lowers it. Do not put health, medical, or financial advice in a fabricated AI answer without legal review — that's the highest-risk version of this format. And never present the exchange as a real, unprompted ChatGPT output endorsing your product; it's a dramatization, same as the iMessage thread.
+
+### Apple Notes Reveal
+
+A different genre from the chat formats: **confession, not conversation.** The viewer watches someone type a private note — a list of realizations, a "things I wish I knew" entry — with the keyboard visible. The note's title is the hook and does the job slide 1 does in a carousel ("Things nobody told me about 45."). The product appears as one item in the list, named the way a person would actually write it to themselves — not the way a brand would.
+
+**Craft details:**
+- **Audio is keyboard taps only.** No chat SFX, no receive tones — a note has no other party. A quiet music bed still works underneath.
+- **Type at real thumb pace with jitter**, same as the iMessage composer rule. One typo-and-correction reads as human; several read as staged.
+- **Get the Notes chrome right:** title styled larger than body, the formatting bar above the keyboard, iOS-yellow accents. Same HTML-mimicry approach — and the same Apple trade-dress review note and generic-notes-app fallback — as everything else here.
+- **Fit the note to the frame.** Write short enough that the whole note fits without scrolling, or scroll once, deliberately, late.
+- **First person or it doesn't work.** The moment the note reads like ad copy ("[Brand] changed everything!"), the intimacy that makes the format convert is gone. The product mention should be the *least* enthusiastic line in the note.
+
+The grounding rule hits differently here: the confession is a dramatization of a *composite, true* customer story — pull the realizations from real reviews and interviews (the Grounded Inputs corpus), and keep any numbers or outcomes to documented ones.
+
+### AirDrop Reveal
+
+The one interaction-native format in the family: the hook is an **incoming AirDrop request**, and the **Accept tap is the reveal**. The viewer watches from the *receiver's* POV — a translucent AirDrop card slides up, "[Sender] would like to share [preview]," with a gray Decline and a blue Accept. The curiosity is structural ("what is this and who's sending it?") and the accept/decline choice is a built-in micro-conversion beat baked into iOS itself. Tapping Accept transfers the item — and *that's* where the product, the offer, or the result lands.
+
+**Craft details:**
+- **The preview thumbnail is the hook.** It's the one image on the AirDrop card before Accept, so it has to earn the tap — same job as the iMessage screenshot attachment. Make it the result, the product money-shot, or the offer.
+- **Cast the sender name like a real share.** "Sarah's iPhone," "Mom," "Jordan's MacBook" reads native; a brand name in the sender slot reads like an ad — save brand-as-sender for the reveal, not the incoming card.
+- **The transfer progress ring is the signature motion — don't skip it.** Incoming card → a beat of hesitation ("accept?") → the Accept tap → the circular progress fills → the item lands + end card. That progress-ring beat is what makes it read as a real AirDrop and not a cut.
+- **Audio is the AirDrop swoosh / received tone**, not the iMessage tritones. Same CC0-Apple-sounds sourcing and the same Apple trade-dress review note as the rest of the family, with a generic "nearby share" skin as the fallback.
+- **Keep it short and get the material right.** The card's blur/translucency and the gray Decline / blue Accept button pair are the recognizable cues; a flat opaque sheet breaks the illusion. The whole beat is faster than the chat formats — the interaction *is* the ad.
+- **Receiver POV by default; sender POV as the flex.** Receiving reads as discovery ("someone sent me this"); sending reads as a recommendation you're making ("had to AirDrop this to the group") — use sender POV when the angle is advocacy rather than discovery.
+
+Grounding is the same family rule: it's a dramatization of a share, not a claim that a real person actually AirDropped your product. Every claim on the transferred item is substantiated per the Grounded Inputs rules, and the exchange is never presented as a real, unprompted endorsement.

package/departments/marketing/skills/ad-creative/references/motion-video-ads.md

@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
+# Motion-Style Video Ads (Faceless, Fully Generated)
+
+> Format popularized by Borja ([@borjafat](https://x.com/borjafat)) and the open `super-video-maker` motion-collage recipe by [Bomx](https://github.com/Bomx/super-video-maker-skill); this guide is an original re-expression of the method, extended with a multi-style library and production lessons from building and shipping it end-to-end.
+
+Produce a 15–45s faceless video ad or explainer from nothing but a concept: a styled
+poster still (image model) → brought to life with subtle motion (image-to-video model)
+→ narrated (TTS) → word-timed captions. No footage, no presenter, no editor. Cost per
+finished video is roughly $3–6 in API calls; wall-clock ~15 minutes.
+
+The format works because the *still* carries the idea (one literal, slightly surreal
+visual per beat) and the *motion* only makes it breathe. Resist the urge to make the
+video do the storytelling — this is animated poster design, not filmmaking.
+
+## When to use
+
+- Concept/explainer ads: one idea made concrete ("your CRM is a junk drawer")
+- Top-of-funnel social video (9:16 Reels/Shorts/TikTok, 4:5 and 1:1 feed)
+- Brand-response hybrids where a distinctive owned style beats stock UGC
+- NOT for: demo/proof ads (screen recordings win), testimonial/UGC formats,
+  anything requiring a real product shot as evidence
+
+## Pipeline (provider-agnostic)
+
+1. **Script** 3–6 beats, 20–45s of VO. One idea per beat. Calm and specific beats
+   hype. End on a single CTA line.
+2. **Poster stills** — one per beat, using a *style formula* (below). Generate beat 1,
+   approve it, then pass it as a reference image for every later beat so the set reads
+   as one series. Fix garbled label text by regenerating with a shorter phrase.
+3. **Animate** each approved still with an image-to-video model (5–8s per beat).
+   Motion belongs to the objects in the frame; the composition must not change.
+4. **VO + captions**: one continuous TTS take, transcribe with word timestamps
+   (whisper), cut beats at sentence boundaries, burn 2–3-word caption groups.
+5. **Assemble**: concat beats trimmed to their VO spans (hold the last frame to pad),
+   loudness-normalize to `I=-16:TP=-1.5:LRA=11`, export per-placement aspect.
+
+**Provider options** (any combination works; the recipe is model-agnostic):
+
+| Stage | One-key Gemini path | Alternatives |
+|---|---|---|
+| Stills | Nano Banana Pro (`gemini-3-pro-image-preview`) — excellent label typography | GPT-Image, Flux, Ideogram |
+| Motion | Veo 3.1 fast image-to-video (note: 1080p requires 8s clips) | Seedance 2.0 via fal.ai, Kling, Runway |
+| VO | Gemini TTS (calm voices: Charon/Kore) | ElevenLabs, OpenAI TTS |
+| Captions | whisper word timings + PIL/ASS burn-in | CapCut, platform auto-captions |
+
+## The style library
+
+Five proven looks. Each is a fill-in-the-slots prompt formula; keep ONE style per
+campaign so the account builds a recognizable visual identity. All five animate well.
+
+### A. Screen-print collage (editorial, "In a Nutshell" docu energy)
+> Flat screen-print collage poster, single saturated `<COLOR>` background, subtle newsprint grain. Centerpiece: a black-and-white halftone cutout of `<SUBJECT DOING THE LITERAL CONCEPT>`, treated as a paper sticker with a thin white die-cut outline, slightly torn edges, and a soft drop shadow. Visible halftone dot texture, vintage editorial photo feel, grayscale subject. Accent cutouts: 2–4 flat shapes (cream circle sun, black zigzag, scattered dots). A torn-paper label near the bottom with the words "`<LABEL>`" in bold condensed uppercase newspaper type. Matte printed risograph aesthetic, limited palette. No gradients, no glow, no 3D, no photorealism, no extra text.
+
+### B. Flat vector explainer (clean, techy, infinitely brandable)
+> Flat vector explainer illustration in the style of a premium animated science channel: a friendly simplified `<SUBJECT>`, bold flat shapes with clean rounded edges, solid `<BRAND COLOR>` background, limited palette of `<2-3 ACCENTS>`, flat geometric accents, soft long shadows, completely flat 2D design. A clean rectangular banner near the bottom reads "`<LABEL>`" in bold geometric sans-serif uppercase. No outlines, no 3D, no photorealism, no texture, no extra text.
+
+### C. Papercraft diorama (warm, tactile, premium-crafty)
+> Layered papercraft diorama: `<SUBJECT>`, every element hand-cut from colored construction paper with visible paper thickness and real drop shadows between layers, `<COLOR>` paper background with cut-paper accents, tactile handmade craft feel with slightly imperfect scissor cuts. A cut-paper banner near the bottom reads "`<LABEL>`" in chunky cut-out paper letters. Soft studio lighting on the paper layers. No digital gradients, no photorealistic humans, no extra text.
+
+### D. Pop-art comic (loud, scroll-stopping, promo-friendly)
+> Vintage pop-art comic panel: `<SUBJECT>`, bold black ink outlines, Ben-Day halftone dots shading, flat process colors (`<PALETTE>`), comic starburst accents, thick panel border, aged newsprint paper texture. A comic caption box near the bottom reads "`<LABEL>`" in bold comic lettering. 1960s printed comic aesthetic, slight ink misregistration. No 3D, no photorealism, no gradients, no extra text.
+
+### E. Claymation (charming, high pattern-interrupt)
+> Stop-motion claymation scene: a charming handmade plasticine `<SUBJECT>`, visible fingerprints and clay texture, `<COLOR>` clay backdrop and floor, chunky clay props, warm soft studio lighting like a stop-motion film set, shallow depth of field. A small clay sign near the bottom reads "`<LABEL>`" in hand-molded clay letters. Handcrafted miniature feel. No 2D illustration, no photorealistic humans, no extra text.
+
+## Brand-flexible styles (token-driven)
+
+The five looks above are *characterful* — they impose their own palette. This second
+tier is *brand-first*: each style is defined by *slots*, so any company's tokens drop
+in and the output reads as that brand's own design system.
+
+**The brand slots contract.** Before generating, resolve these from the brand's
+guidelines (or `.agents/product-marketing.md`):
+
+- `FIELD` — the neutral ground (brand white/off-white, or brand dark)
+- `INK` — the drawing/type color (brand gray/charcoal, near-black)
+- `ACCENT` — ONE brand color or gradient, used sparingly (a rule, a beam, a square)
+- `TYPE FEEL` — the brand's typographic voice ("clean modern grotesque sans", "geometric sans", "mono captions")
+- Any per-brand constraints (e.g. "gradients only on borders/edges, never fills")
+
+Keep the accent genuinely scarce — one element per frame. Scarcity is what makes
+these read as designed rather than generated.
+
+### F. Monoline editorial (the most universally brandable)
+> Minimal editorial monoline illustration poster: `<SUBJECT>`, drawn entirely in elegant thin single-weight `<INK>` lines on a clean `<FIELD>` background, the style of a premium tech company blog illustration. Sparse composition with generous whitespace, a few small monoline accent details, and ONE restrained `<ACCENT>` element: `<a thin accent underline sweep / a small accent arc>`. A small caption near the bottom reads "`<LABEL>`" in `<TYPE FEEL>`, `<INK>`, letterspaced uppercase, with a thin `<ACCENT>` underline. Precise, technical, refined. No fills except the single accent, no gradients, no 3D, no photorealism, no texture, no extra text.
+
+### G. Swiss typographic (type IS the visual — any brand with a font and a color)
+> Swiss International Typographic Style poster: the words "`<LABEL>`" set enormous in a bold `<TYPE FEEL>`, `<INK>` on a `<FIELD>` background, filling the upper two thirds with tight leading and cropped edges. A small black-and-white photographic cutout of `<SUBJECT>` sits on a thin baseline grid in the lower third, aligned to an asymmetric grid with one thin `<ACCENT>` rule line and a small `<ACCENT>` square as the only color. Visible faint grid lines, precise margins, mathematical composition. Flat, printed, matte. No gradients, no 3D, no decoration, no extra text beyond the label and one small letterspaced caption line.
+
+### H. Wireglow (dark keynote — dev-tool / dark-mode brands)
+> Dark minimal tech-keynote poster: `<SUBJECT>` rendered as an elegant thin light-gray wireframe line drawing on a near-black `<FIELD>` background with subtle film grain. From `<the focal object>` emanates a soft narrow beam of glowing `<ACCENT>` gradient light, the only color, feathered and atmospheric. Faint thin concentric geometric guide circles. A caption near the bottom reads "`<LABEL>`" in `<TYPE FEEL>`, light gray, letterspaced uppercase, with a hairline gradient rule beneath it. Restrained, premium, technical. No photorealism, no 3D render look, no busy elements, no extra text.
+
+### I. Duotone screenprint (photo brands — editorial punch from two tokens)
+> Bold duotone screenprint photo poster: a dramatic photograph of `<SUBJECT>`, reproduced as a two-color screenprint — `<INK>` for the shadows and `<ACCENT>` for the highlights — on an off-white `<FIELD>` paper background with visible coarse halftone grain and slight ink misregistration. Strong diagonal composition, the figure large and cropped. A wide solid `<INK>` bar near the bottom carries the words "`<LABEL>`" reversed out in bold condensed `<TYPE FEEL>` uppercase, with a small `<ACCENT>` square bullet. Editorial poster energy, matte printed feel. No gradients beyond the duotone, no 3D, no extra text.
+
+**Motion notes for this tier**: F/G animate as drawing motions (lines extend, the accent
+sweep draws itself, type settles by a few pixels); H animates as beam pulse + slow
+wireframe rotation feel; I as grain shimmer + slow push. Same hard rules apply — motion
+belongs to existing elements, composition never changes.
+
+## Motion prompt formula
+
+> Subtle living-`<style>` motion of the existing elements only. `<ONE literal motion tied to the concept: the pile inflates / the arrow creeps higher / the megaphone trembles with each shout>`. `<Secondary ambient motion: accents drift, gentle push-in>`. Every element that is visible now is the only thing that ever appears; the composition stays exactly as it is. Everything stays `<style descriptor: a flat printed collage / flat 2D vector / cut paper / printed comic / handmade clay>`. No camera whip, no scene change, no morphing, no added text.
+
+## Hard-earned gotchas
+
+- **Video models love adding photoreal "maker hands"** reaching into frame, especially
+  on pressing/handling motions — and *negative prompts make it worse* ("no hands" is an
+  attention trap). Never mention hands; describe motion as belonging to the objects,
+  and include "the composition stays exactly as it is."
+- **Always QC each clip's final 2 seconds** — that's where intruding objects and style
+  drift appear. Trim before them or regenerate; never ship a "realified" frame.
+- **One dominant motion per beat.** Two motions read as chaos at feed speed.
+- **TTS + whisper disagree on sound-alikes** ("laws" → "loss"). Read the transcript
+  against the script before burning captions; prefer phoneme-unambiguous CTA wording.
+- **Keep captions clear of the label band** (captions ~60% height, label ~80%).
+  Clamp caption groups so two never overlap; shrink-to-fit long groups.
+- **Ad-specific**: put the brand/label in the poster itself (it survives sound-off
+  autoplay), front-load the concept in beat 1 (the 3-second hook is the poster), and
+  export 9:16 + 4:5 + 1:1 from the same beats by regenerating stills per aspect
+  rather than cropping.
+
+## Compliance
+
+Fully synthetic characters — no likeness/UGC disclosure issues, but check platform
+AI-content disclosure requirements (Meta and TikTok label AI-generated media).
+Don't fabricate statistics or testimonials in the VO; ground every claim.